CN116671207A

CN116671207A - Device and method for transmitting two-level DCI

Info

Publication number: CN116671207A
Application number: CN202080108011.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 唐浩; 马江镭; 毕晓艳; 朱佩英
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-12-24
Filing date: 2020-12-24
Publication date: 2023-08-29
Also published as: EP4233434A4; WO2022133884A1; US20230328758A1; MX2023007597A; EP4233434A1

Abstract

A method in an apparatus for receiving Downlink Control Information (DCI) is provided. The first-stage DCI is scrambled by a Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), wherein the first-stage DCI explicitly indicates scheduling information of the second-stage DCI. The second level DCI is transmitted in a first Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), which is a physical channel without data transmission. The second-stage DCI has a second-stage DCI format, and the apparatus obtains at least one second-stage DCI format from at least one of the first-stage DCI and the second DCI. This allows great flexibility in the format of the second-level DCI.

Description

Apparatus and method for transmitting two-stage DCI

Technical Field

The present application relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to methods and apparatus for transmitting and receiving downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI).

Background

In some wireless communication systems, a User Equipment (UE) communicates wirelessly with one or more base stations. The wireless communication from the UE to the base station is called uplink communication. The wireless communication from the base station to the UE is referred to as downlink communication. Performing uplink and downlink communications requires resources. For example, a base station may wirelessly transmit data to a UE in downlink communications for a particular duration on a particular frequency. Frequency and duration are examples of resources, commonly referred to as "time-frequency resources".

Two devices that communicate wirelessly with each other on time-frequency resources are not necessarily a UE and a base station. For example, two UEs may communicate wirelessly with each other over a side-link using device-to-device (D2D) communications. As another example, two network devices (e.g., a ground base station and a non-ground base station, such as a drone) may communicate wirelessly with each other over a backhaul link. When devices communicate wirelessly with each other, wireless communication may be performed by transmission of control information dynamically indicated to the UE, for example, in a physical layer control channel. An example of dynamically indicated control information is information sent in physical layer control signaling, e.g. downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI).

In 3GPP New Radio (NR) release 15, there are 8 DCI formats, as shown in table 1 below. For each DCI format, a User Equipment (UE) needs to know the DCI size and use blind decoding for DCI detection. The large number of DCI formats and DCI sizes increases UE implementation complexity. For example, the UE needs to perform DCI size alignment for these DCI formats. In NR, the total number of different DCI sizes monitored by the Cell configuration is not more than 4, and the total number of different DCI sizes with Cell radio network temporary identifiers (Cell-Radio Network Temporary Identifier, C-RNTI) is not more than 3.

Table 1: DCI format

Furthermore, when new features are introduced in 3GPP NR release 16, new DCI formats are introduced, e.g. DCI formats 0_2 and 1_2 for ultra-reliable low latency communication (ultra reliable low latency communication, URLLC) scheduling, which further increases the complexity of blind decoding by the UE. Further, for carrier aggregation (carrier aggregation, CA) and dual connectivity (dual connectivity, DC), the number of blind decodes performed by the UE increases with the number of active carriers.

Disclosure of Invention

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method and apparatus (e.g., UE) for receiving downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI), the method and apparatus comprising: receiving a first level of DCI scrambled by a radio network temporary identifier (radio network temporary identifier, RNTI) in a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH), wherein the first level of DCI explicitly indicates scheduling information of a second level of DCI; receiving the second level of DCI in a first physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH), wherein the first PDSCH is a physical channel without data transmission; wherein the second-level DCI has at least one second-level DCI format, and the apparatus obtains the at least one second-level DCI format from at least one of the first-level DCI and the second DCI.

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided a method and apparatus (e.g., BS) for transmitting downlink control information (downlink control information, DCI), the method and apparatus comprising: transmitting a first-level DCI scrambled by a radio network temporary identifier (radio network temporary identifier, RNTI) in a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH), wherein the first-level DCI explicitly indicates scheduling information of a second-level DCI; transmitting the second level DCI in a first physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH), wherein the first PDSCH is a physical channel without data transmission; wherein the second-level DCI has at least one second-level DCI format, and the network device indicates the at least one second-level DCI format according to at least one of the first-level DCI and the second DCI.

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an apparatus comprising: at least one processor; and a memory storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to: receiving a first level of DCI scrambled by a radio network temporary identifier (radio network temporary identifier, RNTI) in a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH), wherein the first level of DCI explicitly indicates scheduling information of a second level of DCI; receiving the second-level DCI in a first physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH), wherein the first PDSCH is a physical channel without data transmission, wherein the second-level DCI has at least one second-level DCI format, and the apparatus obtains the at least one second-level DCI format from at least one of the first-level DCI and the second DCI.

According to one aspect of the disclosure, there is provided a network device comprising: at least one processor; and a memory storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to: transmitting a first-level DCI scrambled by a radio network temporary identifier (radio network temporary identifier, RNTI) in a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH), wherein the first-level DCI explicitly indicates scheduling information of a second-level DCI; the second-level DCI is transmitted in a first physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH), wherein the first PDSCH is a physical channel with no data transmission, wherein the second-level DCI has at least one second-level DCI format, and the network device indicates the at least one second-level DCI format from at least one of the first-level DCI and the second DCI.

Advantageously, the two-level DCI framework based on the above embodiment includes scheduling information that the first-level DCI explicitly indicates the second-level DCI, so that only the first-level DCI is blind-decoded, and the second-level DCI does not require blind detection, thereby reducing the number of blind-decoding. Furthermore, this method may also be used to support at least one second-level DCI format, thereby making the format design more flexible.

In some embodiments, the apparatus obtains the at least one DCI format based on one of: the first-stage DCI scrambled by a device-specific RNTI, N bits of the scheduling information in the first-stage DCI or the second-stage DCI indicating the at least one second-stage DCI format; the first-stage DCI scrambled by a specific group public RNTI, the apparatus obtaining the at least one second-stage DCI format according to the specific group public RNTI; the first-stage DCI scrambled by a unified group common RNTI, a codeword of the second DCI scrambled by a specific group RNTI, and the apparatus obtaining the at least one second-stage DCI format from the specific group RNTI; the first-stage DCI scrambled by a unified group common RNTI, N bits of the scheduling information in the first-stage DCI or the second-stage DCI indicating the at least one second-stage DCI format.

In some embodiments, the particular group common RNTI includes one of: the slot format indication (slot format indication, SFI) -RNTI, INT-RNTI, transmit power control (transmit power control, TPC) -PUSCH-RNTI, TPC-physical uplink control channel (physical uplink control channel, PUCCH) -RNTI, TPC-sounding reference symbol (sounding reference symbol, SRS) -RNTI.

In some embodiments, the at least one second-level DCI format includes a predefined relationship between at least one second-level DCI format indicator and at least one scheduling information format, and the at least one scheduling information format includes one of: a format for scheduling one PUSCH in one carrier; a format for scheduling one PDSCH in one carrier; a format for scheduling multiple PDSCH with separate MCS/NDI/RV in one carrier or in multiple carriers; a format for scheduling multiple PDSCH with separate MCS/NDI/RV in one carrier or in multiple carriers; formats for scheduling one PDSCH and one PUSCH in one carrier or in a plurality of carriers; formats for scheduling PDSCH(s) and PUSCH(s) in one carrier or in multiple carriers; a format for scheduling side uplinks in a carrier or carriers; a format for including scheduling information and UE data; a format for indicating a slot format; a format for preemption indication; formats for power control of PUSCH or PUCCH; and a format for power control of SRS.

Advantageously, information bits in the first-stage DCI or the second-stage DCI may be used to indicate a format without blind decoding of the second-stage DCI. In this way, the second-level DCI may support a number of functions such as AI mode indication, multi-carrier/BWP scheduling information, joint bearer UE data, and scheduling information of another data transmission.

In some embodiments, the number of information bits in the second-level DCI is the same as a Transport Block (TB) size of the first PDSCH.

In some embodiments, when the number of information bits in the second-stage DCI before padding is less than the total number of bits of a transport block carrying the second-stage DCI, generating some 0 or 1 padding bits for the second-stage DCI such that the number of bits is equal to the number of bits of the TB carrying the second-stage DCI; and intercepting bits included in the second-stage DCI such that the number of bits is equal to the number of bits of a Transport Block (TB) carrying the second-stage DCI when the number of information bits in the second-stage DCI before interception is greater than the total number of bits of the TB carrying the second-stage DCI.

In some embodiments, the scheduling information includes 1 bit indicating an AI mode or a non-AI mode.

In some embodiments, the scheduling information includes at least one artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence, AI) indicator field, wherein each AI indicator field is for a respective at least one scheduling information field of the second-level DCI; each AI indicator field indicates whether an AI mode or a non-AI mode is applied to the corresponding at least one scheduling information field of the second-stage DCI.

In some embodiments, the at least one scheduling information is at least one of: frequency domain/time domain resource allocation, modulation order, coding scheme, new data indicator, redundancy version, hybrid automatic repeat request (hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ) related information, transmit power control, PUCCH resource indicator, one or more antenna ports, transmission configuration indication, code block group indicator, preemption indication, cancellation indication, availability indicator, resource pool index.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises, for each scheduling information field for which an AI indicator field exists: when the AI indicator field of the schedule information field indicates an AI mode, a received value of the schedule information field is used as an input to an AI inference engine for determining a meaning of the schedule information field; when the AI indicator field of the scheduling information field indicates a non-AI mode, a received value of the scheduling information field is mapped to a meaning of the scheduling information field.

In some embodiments, for at least one of the at least one AI indicator fields, the respective at least one scheduling information field comprises at least two scheduling information fields, and wherein the AI indicator field indicates one of: a non-AI mode is applied to the at least two scheduling information fields; an AI mode is applied to one of the at least two scheduling information fields and a non-AI mode is applied to the other of the at least two scheduling information fields; a separate AI mode is applied to each of the at least two scheduling information fields; the joint AI mode is commonly applied to the at least two schedule fields.

In some embodiments, the at least two scheduling information fields include one of a plurality of bit fields having a relationship with a time resource allocation (time resource assignment, RA) and a frequency domain RA, and the AI indicator is as follows:

in some embodiments, the second-level DCI includes an indication of the presence or absence of at least one scheduling information field in the second-level DCI; the at least one scheduling information field is obtained from the second-stage DCI when the dynamic indication indicates the presence of the at least one scheduling information field.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises: when the dynamic indication indicates that the at least one scheduling information field is not present, for each of the at least one scheduling information field: using a predefined value of the scheduling information field; or an RRC configuration value using the scheduling information field; or use the value of the scheduling information field from the previous DCI.

In some embodiments, the scheduling information includes: one or more bits indicating the number of carriers being scheduled; for each carrier being scheduled, one or more bits of a carrier index indicating the carrier being scheduled; for each carrier being scheduled, indicating how many transmissions are being scheduled on the carrier for one or more bits each; and scheduling information for each transmission being scheduled.

In some embodiments, the one or more bits indicating how many transmissions are being scheduled each on the carrier comprise: one or more bits indicating how many downlink transmissions are being scheduled; one or more bits indicating how many uplink transmissions are being scheduled; and one or more bits indicating how many side-link transmissions are being scheduled.

Advantageously, these embodiments may be used to support flexible functionality of the level DCI, such as one or more of the following: unified AI indication and non-AI indication, dynamic switching between AI mode and non-AI mode, dynamic indication of joint AI or individual AI of multiple modules, dynamic indication of the presence of some slowly varying fields, flexible spectrum (carrier/BWP) scheduling, flexible multi-transmission (DL/UL/SL/unlicensed/NTN) scheduling.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises: the device receives an indicator indicating sense enable or sense disable.

In some embodiments, the apparatus receives the indicator through radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC) signaling, DCI, or a medium access control-control entity (medium access control-control entity, MAC-CE).

In some embodiments, the method further comprises: the apparatus transmits a channel state information (channel state information, CSI) report, wherein a content of the CSI report or a number of bits of at least one type of uplink control information included in the CSI report depends on whether sensing is enabled.

In some embodiments, the number of bits of at least one type of uplink control information indicates one or more reference signals including channel state information-reference symbol (CSI-RS) resource indication (CSI-RS resource indicator, CRI), synchronization signal block resource indicator (synchronization signal block resource indicator, SSBRI), reference signal received power (reference signal received power, RSRP) or differential RSRP, and the one or more reference signals are related to the bit width without sensing and the bit width with sensing as follows:

drawings

Embodiments of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a communication system;

fig. 2 is a block diagram of a communication system;

fig. 3 is a block diagram of a communication system showing the basic component structures of an electronic device (electronic device, ED) and a base station;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of modules that may be used to implement or perform one or more steps of embodiments of the present application;

fig. 5A shows time-frequency resources of two-level DCI;

fig. 5B shows time division multiplexing and frequency division multiplexing of two-stage DCI;

fig. 6 shows a protocol stack, showing how two levels of DCI are transmitted;

fig. 7A is a flowchart of a two-stage DCI transmission method;

fig. 7B is a flowchart of a two-stage DCI reception method;

fig. 8 illustrates the use of different parameter sets for PDSCH of the second level DCI and downlink data;

fig. 9A and 9B illustrate flowcharts of methods of using different parameter sets for the second-stage DCI and PDSCH of downlink data;

fig. 10 illustrates time-frequency resources for two-level DCI scheduled on multiple carriers;

fig. 11 shows an example of frequency division multiplexing between first-stage DCI and second-stage DCI;

fig. 12 shows an example of time multiplexing between first-stage DCI and second-stage DCI;

fig. 13 shows an example of demodulation reference symbol design;

fig. 14 is an example of a pre-loaded DMRS shared between DCI and data;

fig. 15 is an example of pre-loaded DMRS shared between DCI and data applicable to a low peak-to-average power ratio (peak average power ratio, PAPR) waveform; and

Fig. 16 is an example of pre-loading DMRS in both second-level DCI and data that do not share DMRS.

Detailed Description

The operation of the present example embodiment and its structure are discussed in detail below. It should be appreciated that the present disclosure provides many applicable inventive concepts that can be embodied in any of a wide variety of specific contexts. The specific embodiments discussed are merely illustrative of specific structures and specific ways to operate the disclosure and do not limit the scope of the disclosure.

In future networks such as 6G, it is expected that more UE requirements and more UE capabilities will be introduced, e.g. extreme power saving requirements, as well as UEs with and without artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence, AI). Thus, if the DCI follows the same design principle of 5G NR, there will be a large number of DCI formats/sizes in 6G, which will put a huge burden on the UE when performing blind decoding. The introduction of new DCI formats is complicated by DCI size alignment and may not be forward compatible. Furthermore, the number of blind decodes performed by the UE increases with the number of active carriers. Therefore, it would be advantageous to be able to reduce the number of blind decodes that the UE needs to perform.

Referring to fig. 1, as an illustrative example, but not limited thereto, a simplified schematic diagram of a communication system is provided. Communication system 100 includes a radio access network 120. Radio access network 120 may be a next generation (e.g., sixth generation (6G) or higher version) radio access network, or a legacy (e.g., 5G, 4G, 3G, or 2G) radio access network. One or more communication Electrical Devices (ED) 110a-120j (generally referred to as 110) may be interconnected with each other or connected to one or more network nodes (170 a, 170b, generally referred to as 170) in the radio access network 120. The core network 130 may be part of a communication system and may be dependent on or independent of the radio access technology used in the communication system 100. In addition, the communication system 100 includes a public switched telephone network (public switched telephone network, PSTN) 140, the internet 150, and other networks 160.

Fig. 2 illustrates an example communication system 100. In general, communication system 100 enables a plurality of wireless or wired elements to communicate data and other content. The purpose of communication system 100 may be to provide content (e.g., voice, data, video, and/or text) via broadcast, multicast, unicast, and the like. The communication system 100 may operate by sharing resources, such as carrier spectrum bandwidth, among its constituent elements. Communication system 100 may include a terrestrial communication system and/or a non-terrestrial communication system. Communication system 100 may provide a wide range of communication services and applications (e.g., earth monitoring, telemetry, passive sensing and positioning, navigation and tracking, autonomous delivery and mobility, etc.). Communication system 100 may provide a high degree of availability and robustness through joint operation of terrestrial and non-terrestrial communication systems. For example, integrating a non-terrestrial communication system (or components thereof) into a terrestrial communication system may result in a heterogeneous network that may be considered to include multiple layers. Heterogeneous networks may achieve better overall performance than traditional communication networks through efficient multi-link joint operation, more flexible function sharing, and faster physical layer link switching between terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks.

Terrestrial communication systems and non-terrestrial communication systems may be considered subsystems of the communication system. In the illustrated example, the communication system 100 includes electronic devices (electronic device, ED) 110a-110d (generally referred to as ED 110), radio access networks (radio access network, RAN) 120a, 120b, non-terrestrial communication network 120c, core network 130, public switched telephone network (public switched telephone network, PSTN) 140, internet 150, and other networks 160. The RANs 120a, 120b include respective Base Stations (BSs) 170a, 170b, which may be generally referred to as terrestrial transmit and receive points (terrestrial transmit and receive point, T-TRPs) 170a-170b. Non-terrestrial communication network 120c includes access node 120c, which may be generally referred to as non-terrestrial transmission and reception point (NT-TRP) 172.

Any ED 110 may alternatively or additionally be used to interface, access, or communicate with any other T-TRP 170a, 170b and NT-TRP 172, the Internet 150, the core network 130, the PSTN 140, other networks 160, or any combination of the preceding. In some examples, ED 110a may transmit uplink and/or downlink transmissions with T-TRP 170a over interface 190 a. In some examples, EDs 110a, 110b, and 110d may also communicate directly with each other through one or more side-link air interfaces 190 b. In some examples, ED 110d may communicate uplink and/or downlink transmissions with NT-TRP 172 via interface 190 c.

Air interfaces 190a and 190b may use similar communication techniques, such as any suitable radio access technology. For example, communication system 100 may implement one or more channel access methods in air interfaces 190a and 190b, such as code division multiple access (code division multiple access, CDMA), time division multiple access (time division multiple access, TDMA), frequency division multiple access (frequency division multiple access, FDMA), orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA), or single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA). Air interfaces 190a and 190b may utilize other higher dimensional signal spaces, which may involve combinations of orthogonal dimensions and/or non-orthogonal dimensions.

Air interface 190c may enable communication between ED 110d and one or more NT-TRPs 172 via a wireless link or a simple link. For some examples, a link is a dedicated connection for unicast transmissions, a connection for broadcast transmissions, or a connection between a set of EDs and one or more NT-TRPs for multicast transmissions.

RANs 120a and 120b communicate with core network 130 to provide various services, such as voice, data, and other services, to EDs 110a, 110b, and 110 c. The RANs 120a and 120b and/or the core network 130 may communicate directly or indirectly with one or more other RANs (not shown) that may or may not be served directly by the core network 130 and may or may not employ the same radio access technology as the RANs 120a, 120b, or both. Core network 130 may also serve as gateway access between (i) RANs 120a and 120b or EDs 110a, 110b, and 110c, or both, and (ii) other networks, such as PSTN 140, internet 150, and other network 160. In addition, some or all of ED 110a, 110b, and 110c may include functionality to communicate with different wireless networks over different wireless links using different wireless technologies and/or protocols. ED 110a, 110b, and 110c may communicate with service provider or switch (not shown) and Internet 150 via wired communication channels, rather than (or in addition to) wireless communication. PSTN 140 may include circuit-switched telephone networks for providing legacy telephone services (plain old telephone service, POTS). The internet 150 may include computer networks and subnets (intranets) or both and is compatible with network protocols (Internet Protocol, IP), transmission control protocols (Transmission Control Protocol, TCP), user datagram protocols (User Datagram Protocol, UDP), and the like. ED 110a, 110b, and 110c may be multimode devices capable of operating in accordance with multiple wireless access technologies and include multiple transceivers required to support those technologies.

Fig. 3 shows another example of ED 110 and base stations 170a, 170b, and/or 170 c. ED 110 is used to connect people, objects, machines, etc. ED 110 may be widely used in a variety of scenarios, such as cellular communications, device-to-device (D2D), vehicle-to-everything (vehicle to everything, V2X), peer-to-peer (P2P), machine-to-machine (M2M), machine-to-type communication, MTC, internet of things (Internet of things, IOT), virtual Reality (VR), augmented reality (augmented reality, AR), industrial control, autopilot, telemedicine, smart grid, smart furniture, smart office, smart wearable, smart transportation, smart city, drone, robot, remote sensing, passive sensing, positioning, navigation and tracking, autonomous delivery and mobility, and the like.

Each ED 110 represents any suitable end-user device that operates wirelessly and may include, among the devices described above (or may be referred to as): user equipment/devices (UE), wireless transmit/receive units (wireless transmit/WTRU), mobile stations, fixed or mobile subscriber units, cellular telephones, stations (STAs), machine type communication (machine type communication, MTC) devices, personal digital assistants (personal digital assistant, PDA), smartphones, laptops, computers, tablets, wireless sensors or consumer electronics, smart books, vehicles, automobiles, trucks, buses, trains, or IoT devices, industrial devices or appliances (e.g., communication modules, modems, or chips), and other possibilities. The next generation ED 110 may be referred to using other terms. The base stations 170a and 170b are T-TRPs, and will be referred to as T-TRPs 170 hereinafter. Also shown in FIG. 3, NT-TRP will be referred to hereinafter as NT-TRP 172. Each ED 110 connected to a T-TRP 170 and/or NT-TRP 172 may be dynamically or semi-statically turned on (i.e., established, activated, or enabled), turned off (i.e., released, deactivated, or disabled), and/or configured in response to one of the following: connection availability and connection necessity.

ED 110 includes a transmitter 201 and a receiver 203 coupled to one or more antennas 204. Only one antenna 204 is shown. One, some or all of the antennas may alternatively be panels. The transmitter 201 and the receiver 203 may for example be integrated as a transceiver. The transceiver is used to modulate data or other content for transmission through at least one antenna 204 or network interface controller (Network Interface Controller, NIC). The transceiver is also used to demodulate data or other content received by the at least one antenna 204. Each transceiver includes any suitable structure for generating signals for wireless or wired transmission and/or for processing signals received wirelessly or wired. Each antenna 204 includes any suitable structure for transmitting and/or receiving wireless signals or wired signals.

ED 110 includes at least one memory 208. Memory 208 stores instructions and data used, generated, or collected by ED 110. For example, memory 208 may store software instructions or modules for implementing some or all of the functions and/or embodiments described herein and executed by one or more processing units 210. Each memory 208 includes any suitable volatile and/or nonvolatile storage and retrieval device or devices. Any suitable type of memory may be used, such as random access memory (random access memory, RAM), read Only Memory (ROM), hard disk, optical disk, subscriber identity module (subscriber identity module, SIM) card, memory stick, secure Digital (SD) memory card, on-processor cache, etc.

ED 110 may also include one or more input/output devices (not shown) or interfaces (e.g., a wired interface to Internet 150 in FIG. 1). Input/output devices allow interaction with users or other devices in the network. Each input/output device includes any suitable structure for providing information to or receiving information from a user, such as a speaker, microphone, keypad, keyboard, display, or touch screen, including network interface communications.

ED 110 also includes a processor 210 for performing operations including those related to preparing for transmission of uplink transmissions to NT-TRP 172 and/or T-TRP 170, those related to processing downlink transmissions received from NT-TRP 172 and/or T-TRP 170, and those related to processing side-link transmissions to another ED 110 and from another ED 110. Processing operations related to preparing a transmission for uplink transmission may include operations of encoding, modulating, transmitting beamforming, and generating symbols for transmission. Processing operations associated with processing downlink transmissions may include operations such as receive beamforming, demodulating, and decoding received symbols. According to an embodiment, the downlink transmission may be received by the receiver 203, possibly using receive beamforming, and the processor 210 may extract signaling from the downlink transmission (e.g., by detecting and/or decoding the signaling). Examples of signaling may be reference signals transmitted by NT-TRP 172 and/or T-TRP 170. In some embodiments, processor 276 enables transmit beamforming and/or receive beamforming based on an indication of the beam direction received from T-TRP 170, e.g., beam angle information (beam angle information, BAI). In some embodiments, the processor 210 may perform operations related to network access (e.g., initial access) and/or downlink synchronization, such as operations related to detecting synchronization sequences, decoding, and obtaining system information, and so forth. In some embodiments, processor 210 may perform channel estimation, for example, using reference signals received from NT-TRP 172 and/or T-TRP 170.

Although not shown, the processor 210 may form part of the transmitter 201 and/or the receiver 203. Although not shown, the memory 208 may form part of the processor 210.

The processing components of the transmitter 201 and the receiver 203, the processor 210, may each be implemented by one or more processors, which may be the same or different, for executing instructions stored in a memory (e.g., the memory 208). Alternatively, some or all of the processing components of the transmitter 201 and receiver 203, the processor 210, may be implemented using dedicated circuitry, such as a programmed field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a graphics processing unit (graphical processing unit, GPU), or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).

The T-TRP 170 may be other names in some implementations, such as base stations, base transceiver stations (base transceiver station, BTSs), radio base stations, network nodes, network devices, network side devices, transmit/receive nodes, nodebs, evolved base stations (enodebs or enbs), home enodebs (Home enodebs), next Generation nodebs (gnbs), transmission points (transmission point, TPs), site controllers, access Points (APs) or wireless routers, relay stations, remote radio heads, ground nodes, ground network devices, or ground base stations, baseband units (BBUs), remote radio units (remote radio head, RRUs), active antenna units (active antenna unit, AAUs), remote radio heads (remote radio head, RRHs), central Units (CUs), allocation units (DUs), positioning nodes, and other possibilities. The T-TRP 170 may be a macro BS, a pico BS, a relay node, a donor node, etc., or a combination thereof. T-TRP 170 may refer to the aforementioned device, or an apparatus in the aforementioned device (e.g., a communication module, modem, or chip).

In some embodiments, portions of T-TRP 170 may be dispersed. For example, some of the modules of the T-TRP 170 may be located remotely from the device housing the antenna of the T-TRP 170 and may be coupled to the device housing the antenna by a communication link (not shown) sometimes referred to as a front end such as a common public radio interface (common public radio interface, CPRI). Thus, in some embodiments, the term T-TRP 170 may also refer to a module on the network side that performs processing operations such as determining the location of ED 110, resource allocation (scheduling), message generation, and codec, and is not necessarily part of the device housing the antennas of T-TRP 170. The module may also be coupled to other T-TRPs. In some embodiments, the T-TRP 170 may actually be multiple T-TRPs that operate together to serve the ED 110, e.g., by coordinated multipoint transmission.

The T-TRP 170 includes at least one transmitter 252 and at least one receiver 254 coupled to one or more antennas 256. Only one antenna 256 is shown. One, some or all of the antennas may alternatively be panels. The transmitter 252 and the receiver 254 may be integrated as a transceiver. The T-TRP 170 also includes a processor 260, the processor 260 configured to perform operations including operations related to: preparing a transmission for a downlink transmission to ED 110; processing uplink transmissions received from ED 110; preparing a transmission for a backhaul transmission to NT-TRP 172; and processes transmissions received from NT-TRP 172 over the backhaul. Processing operations associated with preparing a transmission for a downlink or backhaul transmission may include operations of coding, modulation, precoding (e.g., MIMO precoding), transmit beamforming, and generating symbols for transmission. Processing operations related to processing received transmissions in the uplink or backhaul may include operations such as receive beamforming, demodulation, and decoding of received symbols. The processor 260 may also perform operations related to network access (e.g., initial access) and/or downlink synchronization, such as generating the content of the synchronization signal block (synchronization signal block, SSB), generating system information, and so forth. In some embodiments, the processor 260 also generates an indication of the beam direction, e.g., a BAI, which may be scheduled for transmission by the scheduler 253. Processor 260 performs other network-side processing operations described herein, such as determining the location of ED 110, determining where NT-TRP 172 is deployed, and so forth. In some embodiments, processor 260 may generate signaling, e.g., to configure one or more parameters of ED 110 and/or one or more parameters of NT-TRP 172. Any signaling generated by processor 260 is sent by transmitter 252. Note that "signaling" as used herein may alternatively be referred to as control signaling. Dynamic signaling may be transmitted in a control channel, e.g., a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH), while static or semi-static higher layer signaling may be included in packets transmitted in a data channel, e.g., a physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH).

The scheduler 253 may be coupled to the processor 260. The scheduler 253, which may be included in the T-TRP 170 or operate separately from the T-TRP 170, may schedule uplink, downlink, and/or backhaul transmissions, including issuing scheduling grants and/or configuring scheduling-free ("configuration grant") resources. The T-TRP 170 also includes a memory 258 for storing information and data. Memory 258 stores instructions and data used, generated, or collected by T-TRP 170. For example, memory 258 may store software instructions or modules for implementing some or all of the functions and/or embodiments described herein and executed by processor 260.

Although not shown, the processor 260 may form part of the transmitter 252 and/or the receiver 254. Further, although not shown, the processor 260 may implement the scheduler 253. Although not shown, the memory 258 may form part of the processor 260.

The processor 260, the scheduler 253, and the processing components of the transmitter 252 and the receiver 254 may each be implemented by the same or different one or more processors for executing instructions stored in a memory (e.g., memory 258). Alternatively, some or all of the processing components of the processor 260, the scheduler 253, the transmitter 252, and the receiver 254 may be implemented using dedicated circuitry, such as an FPGA, GPU, or ASIC.

Although NT-TRP 172 is shown as an unmanned aerial vehicle by way of example only, NT-TRP 172 may be implemented in any suitable non-terrestrial form. Further, NT-TRP 172 may be another name in some implementations, such as a non-terrestrial node, a non-terrestrial network device, or a non-terrestrial base station. NT-TRP 172 includes a transmitter 272 and a receiver 274 coupled to one or more antennas 280. Only one antenna 280 is shown. One, some or all of the antennas may alternatively be panels. The transmitter 272 and the receiver 274 may be integrated as a transceiver. NT-TRP 172 also includes a processor 276, and processor 260 is configured to perform operations including operations related to: preparing a transmission for a downlink transmission to ED 110; processing uplink transmissions received from ED 110; preparing a transmission for a backhaul transmission to the T-TRP 170; and processes the transmission received from the T-TRP 170 over the backhaul. Processing operations associated with preparing a transmission for a downlink or backhaul transmission may include operations of coding, modulation, precoding (e.g., MIMO precoding), transmit beamforming, and generating symbols for transmission. Processing operations related to processing received transmissions in the uplink or backhaul may include operations such as receive beamforming, demodulation, and decoding of received symbols. In some embodiments, processor 276 implements transmit beamforming and/or receive beamforming based on beam direction information (e.g., beam direction information, BAI) received from T-TRP 170. In some embodiments, processor 276 may generate signaling, e.g., to configure one or more parameters of ED 110. In some embodiments, NT-TRP 172 implements physical layer processing but does not implement higher layer functions such as medium access control (medium access control, MAC) or radio link control (radio link control, RLC) layer functions. Since this is only one example, more generally, NT-TRP 172 may implement higher layer functions in addition to physical layer processing.

NT-TRP 172 also includes a memory 278 for storing information and data. Although not shown, the processor 276 may form part of the transmitter 272 and/or the receiver 274. Although not shown, memory 278 may form part of processor 276.

The processing components of the processor 276, the transmitter 272, and the receiver 274 may each be implemented by one or more processors, which may be the same or different, for executing instructions stored in a memory (e.g., memory 278). Alternatively, some or all of the processor 276, the processing components of the transmitter 272, and the processing components of the receiver 274 may be implemented using dedicated circuitry, such as a programmed FPGA, GPU, or ASIC. In some embodiments, NT-TRP 172 may actually be a plurality of NT-TRPs that operate together to serve ED 110, e.g., by coordinated multipoint transmission.

T-TRP 170, NT-TRP 172, and/or ED 110 may include other components, but these components have been omitted for clarity.

One or more steps of the embodiment methods provided herein may be performed by corresponding units or modules according to fig. 4. FIG. 4 shows units or modules in a device, such as in ED 110, in T-TRP 170, or in NT-TRP 172. For example, the signal may be transmitted by a transmitting unit or a transmitting module. For example, the signal may be transmitted by a transmitting unit or a transmitting module. The signal may be received by a receiving unit or a receiving module. The signals may be processed by a processing unit or processing module. Other steps may be performed by an artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence, AI) or Machine Learning (ML) module. The respective units or modules may be implemented using hardware, one or more components or devices executing software, or a combination thereof. For example, one or more of the units or modules may be an integrated circuit, such as a programmed FPGA, GPU, or ASIC. It will be appreciated that where a module is implemented using software for execution by a processor, for example, the module may be retrieved by the processor, in whole or in part, for processing, individually or collectively, as desired, retrieved in one or more instances, and the module itself may include instructions for further deployment and instantiation.

Further details regarding ED 110, T-TRP 170 and NT-TRP 172 are known to those skilled in the art. Therefore, these details are omitted here.

cell/carrier/Bandwidth Part (BWP)/occupied Bandwidth

A device such as a base station may provide coverage over a cell. Wireless communication with the device may occur on one or more carrier frequencies. The carrier frequency will be referred to as the carrier. The carrier may alternatively be referred to as a component carrier (component carrier, CC). The carrier may be characterized by its bandwidth and a reference frequency, such as the center or lowest or highest frequency of the carrier. The carrier may be on licensed or unlicensed spectrum. Wireless communication with the device may also or alternatively occur over one or more bandwidth parts (BWP). For example, a carrier may have one or more BWP. More generally, wireless communication with devices may occur over a frequency spectrum. The spectrum may include one or more carriers and/or one or more BWP.

A cell may include one or more downlink resources and optionally, one or more uplink resources, or a cell may include one or more uplink resources and optionally one or more downlink resources, or a cell may include both one or more downlink resources and one or more uplink resources. For example, a cell may include only one downlink carrier/BWP, or only one uplink carrier/BWP, or include multiple downlink carriers/BWP, or include multiple uplink carriers/BWP, or include one downlink carrier/BWP and one uplink carrier/BWP, or include one downlink carrier/BWP and multiple uplink carriers/BWP, or include multiple downlink carriers/BWP and one uplink carrier/BWP, or include multiple downlink carriers/BWP and multiple uplink carriers/BWP. In some embodiments, a cell may alternatively or additionally include one or more sidelink resources, including sidelink transmission resources and sidelink reception resources.

BWP is a set of contiguous or non-contiguous frequency subcarriers on a carrier or a set of contiguous or non-contiguous frequency subcarriers on multiple carriers, or a set of non-contiguous or contiguous frequency subcarriers, which may have one or more carriers.

In some embodiments, a carrier may have one or more BWP, e.g., a carrier may have a bandwidth of 20MHz and consist of one BWP, or a carrier may have a bandwidth of 80MHz and consist of two adjacent consecutive BWP, etc. In other embodiments, BWP may have one or more carriers, e.g., BWP may have a bandwidth of 40MHz and consist of two adjacent consecutive carriers, each having a bandwidth of 20 MHz. In some embodiments, BWP may comprise non-contiguous spectrum resources consisting of non-contiguous multi-carriers, wherein a first carrier of the non-contiguous multi-carriers may be in the mmW frequency band and a second carrier may be in the low frequency band (e.g., the 2GHz frequency band). The third carrier (if present) may be in the THz band and the fourth carrier (if present) may be in the visible band. The resources in one carrier belonging to BWP may be contiguous or non-contiguous. In some embodiments, BWP has non-contiguous spectrum resources on one carrier.

Wireless communication may occur over an occupied bandwidth. The occupied bandwidth may be defined as the width of the frequency band such that below a lower frequency limit and above an upper frequency limit, the average power transmitted is equal to a specified percentage beta/2 of the total average transmit power, e.g., the value of beta/2 is taken to be 0.5%.

The carrier, BWP, or occupied bandwidth may be dynamically indicated by the network device (e.g., base station), e.g., in physical layer control signaling, such as DCI, or semi-statically, e.g., in radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC) signaling or in medium access control (medium access control, MAC) layer, or predefined according to the application scenario; or as a function of other parameters known to the UE, or may be fixed, e.g., by a standard.

Integrated communication with sensing, artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence, AI) and/or Machine Learning (ML).

In future wireless networks, the number of new devices may grow exponentially with diverse functionality. In addition, more new applications and use cases than 5G will be created, wherein the quality of service requirements are more diverse. These use cases will lead to new key performance indicators (key performance indication, KPI) for future wireless networks (e.g. 6G networks), which can be very challenging, so sensing techniques and AI techniques, in particular deep learning (Ml) techniques, have been introduced into telecommunications to improve system performance and efficiency.

AI/ML technology applies communications, including AI/ML communications in the physical layer and AI/ML communications in the medium access control (media access control, MAC) layer. For the physical layer, the AI/ML communication optimization component designs and improves algorithm performance, such as AI/ML in terms of channel coding, channel modeling, channel estimation, channel decoding, modulation, demodulation, MIMO, waveforms, multiple access, PHY element parameter optimization and updating, beamforming and tracking, sensing and positioning, and the like. For the MAC layer, AI/ML communications utilize AI/ML capabilities to learn, predict and make decisions to solve complex optimization problems with better strategies and optimal solutions, e.g., optimizing functions in the MAC such as intelligent TRP management, intelligent beam management, intelligent channel resource allocation, intelligent power control, intelligent spectrum utilization, intelligent MCS, intelligent HARQ strategy, intelligent Tx/Rx mode adaptation, etc.

AI/ML architecture typically involves multiple nodes that can be organized in two modes, i.e., centralized and distributed, both of which can be deployed in an access network, a core network, or an edge computing system, or a third network. Centralized training and computing architecture is limited by huge communication overhead and strict UE data privacy. The distributed training and computing architecture includes several frameworks, such as distributed machine learning and joint learning. The AI/ML architecture includes an intelligent controller, which may be implemented as a single agent or multiple agents, based on joint optimization or separate optimization. New protocols and signaling mechanisms are needed so that the corresponding interface links can be personalized by custom parameters to meet specific requirements, while minimizing signaling overhead and maximizing overall system spectral efficiency by personalized AI techniques.

Additional terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks can enable a new range of services and applications such as earth monitoring, remote sensing, passive sensing and positioning, navigation, and tracking, autonomous delivery and mobility. Terrestrial network based sensing and non-terrestrial network based sensing may provide intelligent context aware networks to enhance UE experience. For example, terrestrial network based sensing and non-terrestrial network based sensing would involve opportunities for positioning and sensing applications based on a new set of features and service capabilities. THz imaging and spectroscopy applications are likely to provide continuous, real-time physiological information for future digital health technologies through dynamic, non-invasive, non-contact measurements. The instant localization and mapping (Simultaneous localization and mapping, SLAM) method will not only enable advanced cross-reality (XR) applications, but will also enhance navigation of autonomous objects such as vehicles and drones. Furthermore, in terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, measured channel data as well as sensing and positioning data can be obtained over large bandwidths, new spectrum, dense networks and more optical-to-sight (LOS). Based on these data, a radio environment map may be drawn by AI/ML methods, where channel information is linked to its corresponding positioning or environment information to provide an enhanced physical layer design based on this map.

The sensing coordinator is a node in the network that can assist in the sensing operation. These nodes may be stand-alone nodes dedicated to sensing operations only, or other nodes (e.g., TRP 170, ED 110, or core network nodes) that perform sensing operations in parallel with communication transmissions. New protocols and signaling mechanisms are needed so that the corresponding interface links can be performed using custom parameters to meet specific requirements while minimizing signaling overhead and maximizing overall system spectral efficiency.

AI/ML and sensing methods are data hunger and thirst. To incorporate AI/ML and sensing into wireless communications, more and more data needs to be collected, stored, and exchanged. The characteristics of wireless data extend over a wide range in multiple dimensions, e.g., from below 6GHz, millimeters to terahertz carrier frequencies, from space, outdoor to indoor scenes, and from text, voice to video. The data is collected, processed and used in a unified framework or in a different framework.

Two-stage DCI framework

The DCI transmits downlink control information of one or more cells/carriers/BWP. The DCI structure includes one-level DCI and two-level DCI. In the primary DCI structure, DCI has a single part and is carried on a physical channel, e.g., PDCCH, and a UE receives the physical channel and decodes the DCI in the physical channel and then receives or transmits data according to control information in the DCI. For example, in 3GPP TS 38.212v15.8.0, DCI formats 0_0, 0_1, 1_0, 1_1, 2_0, 2_1, 2_2, and 2_3 are one-level DCI.

In a two-level DCI structure, the DCI structure includes two parts, namely a first-level DCI and a corresponding second-level DCI. The first-stage DCI and the second-stage DCI are transmitted on different physical channels, e.g., the first-stage DCI is carried on PDCCH and the second-stage DCI is carried on PDSCH, wherein the second-stage DCI is not multiplexed with UE DL data, i.e., the second-stage DCI is transmitted on PDSCH without DL-SCH. The first-level DCI indicates control information of the second-level DCI including time/frequency/space resources of the second-level DCI. Optionally, the first-level DCI may indicate the presence of the second-level DCI. If the second-level DCI exists, the UE needs to receive both the first-level and second-level DCIs to obtain control information for data transmission. For the content of the first-stage DCI and the second-stage DCI, the first-stage DCI includes control information of the second-stage DCI, and the second-stage DCI includes control information of UE data; or, the first-stage DCI includes control information of the second-stage DCI and partial control information of the UE data, and the second-stage DCI includes partial or full control information of the UE data. If there is no second-level DCI, which may be indicated by the first-level DCI, the UE receives the first-level DCI to obtain control information for data transmission.

According to an embodiment of the present application, a two-level DCI framework is provided. The two-level framework involves using a first level of DCI transmitted by a network device, e.g., by a base station, for receipt by a UE. The first level DCI is carried by a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH). The two-level framework also involves using a second level of DCI transmitted by the network device for receipt by the UE. The second-level DCI is carried by a physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH) without data transmission, or the second-level DCI is carried in a specific physical channel (e.g., a specific downlink data channel, or a specific downlink control channel) used only for the second-level DCI transmission.

The second level DCI is transmitted on a PDSCH without a downlink shared channel (DL-SCH), which is a transport channel for transmitting downlink data. That is, physical resources of PDSCH for transmitting the second-level DCI are used for transmission including the second-level DCI without multiplexing with other downlink data. For example, the transmission unit on PDSCH is a physical resource block (physical resource block, PRB) in the frequency domain and a slot in the time domain, then the entire resource block in the slot may be used for second-level DCI transmission. This allows maximum flexibility in the size of the second level DCI without limiting the amount of DCI that can be transmitted if downlink data multiplexing is employed. This also avoids the complexity of downlink data rate matching when the downlink data is multiplexed with DCI.

The UE receives the first-stage DCI (e.g., by receiving a physical channel carrying the first-stage DCI) and performs decoding (e.g., blind decoding) to decode the first-stage DCI. The scheduling information of the second-level DCI within the PDSCH is explicitly indicated by the first-level DCI. As a result, the UE can receive and decode the second-level DCI according to the scheduling information in the first-level DCI without performing blind decoding.

In some embodiments, more robust scheduling information is used to schedule PDSCH carrying the second-level DCI, as compared to scheduling PDSCH carrying downlink data, increasing the likelihood that the receiving UE may successfully decode the second-level DCI. Detailed examples are provided below.

Since the second-level DCI is not limited by constraints that may exist for PDCCH transmission, the size of the second-level DCI is very flexible and may be used to indicate scheduling information for one carrier, multiple carriers, multiple transmissions of one carrier. Detailed examples are provided below.

Fig. 5A shows an example of resources that may be used for two-level DCI. In fig. 5A, the time domain (e.g., orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, OFDM) symbol duration) is on the horizontal axis and the frequency domain (e.g., OFDM subcarriers) is in the vertical direction. A first-level DCI 400 transmitted using a PDCCH is shown, wherein the PDCCH includes one or more control channel elements (control channel element, CCEs) or enhanced CCEs, and a second-level DCI 402 transmitted on a PDSCH using at least one of one or more PRBs, one or more transport blocks, and one or more symbols, the PDSCH being used only to transmit the second-level DCI 402 without any UE data transmission. One example of PDCCH and PDSCH structures may be referred to below in fig. 6. The first-level DCI 400 includes scheduling information of the second-level DCI 402, graphically depicted by arrow 410. Also shown is UE data 404, which may include uplink data on a physical uplink shared channel (physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH) and/or downlink data on a PDSCH and/or side downlink channel scheduled by the second level DCI.

In some embodiments, the scheduling information of the second-level DCI indicates parameters of at least one of time resources, frequency resources, and spatial resources of the second-level DCI. The first-level DCI may further indicate at least a modulation order of the second-level DCI, a coding rate of the second-level DCI, part or all of scheduling information of data transmission.

The second-level DCI may include scheduling information of a data channel, for example, PDSCH for DL scheduling and/or PUSCH for Uplink (UL) scheduling. Referring to fig. 5A, for this case, arrow 410 represents an indication of time and/or frequency and/or spatial resources and/or modulation order and/or coding rate of the second-level DCI, and arrow 413 represents scheduling information for data transmission, e.g., DL scheduling for PDSCH and/or UL scheduling for PUSCH and/or side-link resources for UE transmission or reception.

In some embodiments, the first-level DCI indicates scheduling information of the second-level DCI and further includes partial scheduling information for data transmission, such as one or more of time/frequency/space resource allocation, modulation order, coding rate, HARQ information, UE feedback resources, power control of data. The second-level DCI includes additional detailed scheduling information for data, e.g., information not indicated by the first-level DCI, or an update to data information indicated by the first-level DCI. Referring to fig. 5A, for this case, arrow 410 represents an indication of time and/or frequency and/or spatial resources and/or modulation order and/or coding rate of the second-level DCI. Arrow 414 represents a portion of the scheduling information for data transmission. Arrow 413 represents detailed scheduling information of data, such as DL scheduling of PDSCH and/or UL scheduling of PUSCH.

The first level DCI is blind decoded by the UE. The second-stage DCI does not require blind decoding because the scheduling information of the second-stage DCI is explicitly indicated by the first-stage DCI.

The transport block defines the basic information bit units transmitted in PDSCH/PUSCH. For PDSCH carrying downlink data, e.g. information bits from the MAC layer, MAC protocol data units (protocol data unit, PDUs) are mapped to TBs. For PDSCH carrying the second level DCI, the DCI maps to TBs. The transport block size (transport block size, TBS) is defined as the size (number of bits) of the TB. By definition, the TB size may include or exclude CRC bits. Although a TB from a medium access control (medium access control, MAC) layer is not transmitted in a PDSCH carrying the second-stage DCI, the size of the second-stage DCI may be determined in a similar manner to how the TB size of a DL-SCH transmitted using the PDSCH is calculated/determined. For example, the TB size may be calculated based on available Resource Elements (REs) of the PDSCH, modulation order, coding rate, number of layers, and the like. See, for example, section 5.1.3.2 of 3gpp TS 38.214, which includes detailed subdivision of an example method of TB size calculation. Therefore, by allocating flexible RBs and symbols for PDSCH and using various coding rates for DCI, the size of the second-level DCI is very flexible, so that the DCI size can be specified differently for different purposes, such as different UEs, different services, different scenarios, etc., so that the personalized DCI size requirement can be achieved.

In some embodiments, the second level DCI may indicate at least one of the following for scheduling data transmission of the UE:

scheduling information of one PDSCH in one carrier/BWP;

scheduling information of a plurality of PDSCH in one carrier/BWP;

scheduling information of one PUSCH in one carrier/BWP;

scheduling information of a plurality of PUSCHs in one carrier/BWP;

scheduling information of one PDSCH and one PUSCH in one carrier/BWP;

scheduling information of one PDSCH and a plurality of PUSCHs in one carrier/BWP;

scheduling information of a plurality of PDSCH and a PUSCH in one carrier/BWP;

scheduling information of a plurality of PDSCH and a plurality of PDSCH in one carrier/BWP;

side uplink scheduling information in one carrier/BWP;

partial scheduling information of at least one PUSCH and/or at least one PDSCH in one carrier/BWP, wherein the partial scheduling information is an update of scheduling information in the first-level DCI;

partial scheduling information of at least one PUSCH and/or at least one PDSCH, wherein remaining scheduling information of at least one PUSCH and/or at least one PDSCH is included in the first-level DCI;

configuration information related to an artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence, AI)/Machine Learning (ML) function;

Configuration information related to non-AI/ML functions;

thus, a unified design of UEs with different AI/ML capabilities may be achieved using a two-level DCI mechanism. The design is unified, i.e. the first-stage DCI may use the same DCI format, while the scheduling information in the second-stage DCI is flexible and may be used to configure AI/ML functions. For example, for scheduling information including scheduling information in a second-level DCI, which may include one or more of frequency-domain/time-domain resource allocation, modulation order, coding scheme, new data indicator, redundancy version, HARQ-related information, transmit power control, PUCCH resource indicator, one or more antenna ports, transmission configuration indication, code block group indicator, preemption indication, cancel indication, availability indicator, resource pool index, etc. (other may refer to section 7.3.1DCI format in 3gpp TS 38.212-g 20), the second-level DCI may include a dynamic indication of whether the information is for non-AI mode or AI mode. When the AI mode has a plurality of AI types, the second-stage DCI may include a dynamic indication indicating one of the plurality of AI types. When the AI mode is applied, the value in the scheduling information field is used as input to the AI inference engine to determine meaning.

For the time and frequency resources of the first and second stage DCIs, they may be time and/or frequency multiplexed, but in general, the first stage DCIs will need to be decoded before the second stage DCIs is decoded, since the UE is not aware of the second stage DCIs before the first stage DCIs is decoded. Fig. 5A shows a first example in which first-stage DCI 400 and second-stage DCI 402 are time-division multiplexed, indicated generally at 410 (which illustrates the same resource usage as fig. 5A). In some embodiments, in the case where the frequency resources of the first-stage DCI and the second-stage DCI are the same, the scheduling information of the second-stage DCI included in the first-stage DCI does not include information about the frequency resources.

Fig. 5B shows a second example in which first-stage DCI 500 and second-stage DCI 502 are frequency-division multiplexed, indicated generally at 510. In this example, first-stage DCI 500 and second-stage DCI 502 are received simultaneously or in overlapping frequency resources, first-stage DCI 500 being decoded first, because the UE is unaware of the second-stage DCI before decoding the first-stage DCI. In some embodiments, in the case where the time resources of the first-stage DCI and the second-stage DCI are the same, the scheduling information of the second-stage DCI included in the first-stage DCI does not include information about the time resources.

For all embodiments described herein, it is assumed that the first-level DCI is carried by PDCCH and the second-level DCI is carried by PDSCH. The PDCCH is a physical channel carrying control information. PDSCH is a physical channel that carries DL-SCH and/or control information from higher layers. PDCCH transmission of the first-level DCI may include one or more control-channel elements (CCEs) or enhanced CCEs. PDSCH transmission of the second-level DCI may occupy at least one of one or more PRBs in the frequency domain, one or more TBs in the time domain, and one or more symbols. The process is similar to downlink data processing.

Details of the protocol stack will now be described, and the following discussion applies equally to the PDCCH and PDSCH described above in any of fig. 5A and 5B. It should be understood that the PDCCH and PDSCH disclosed herein are not limited by the PDCCH and PDSCH of any of fig. 5A and 5B. Referring now to fig. 6, an example of a protocol stack including a radio link control (radio link control, RLC) layer 550, a MAC layer 552, and a physical layer 554 is shown. RLC operates on a logical channel, MAC operates on a transport channel (e.g., downlink-shared channel (DL-SCH)), and physical layer operates on a physical channel (e.g., PDSCH, PDCCH).

PDSCH 558 is a physical channel carrying DL-SCH from higher layers, i.e., there are specific transport channels mapped to PDSCH. For example, DL-SCH 556 is shown mapped to PDSCH 558.

PDCCH 560 is a physical channel that carries control information, e.g., DCI, and there is no corresponding transport channel for the PDCCH. By the provided method, the primary DCI 562 and the primary DCI 564 are carried by the PDCCH 560 and the secondary DCI 566 is carried by the PDSCH 558, but as described above, there is no multiplexing between the DCI and the downlink data on the PDSCH 558. Although PDSCH is generally used to transmit transport blocks including downlink data from DL-SCH, PDSCH does not carry DL-SCH when transport blocks transmitted on PDSCH carry second-level DCI.

In conjunction with fig. 5A and 5B described above, fig. 7A is a flowchart of a method for two-stage DCI transmission by a network element, for example, based on the two-stage DCI structure shown in any one of fig. 5A and 5B. The method of fig. 7A will be described as being performed by a network element having at least one processor, computer-readable storage medium, transmitter, and receiver. In some implementations, a computer-readable storage medium is operatively coupled to the at least one processor and stores a program for execution by the at least one processor. Programming may include instructions to perform the method of fig. 7A. In some implementations, the network element is a BS or TRP, such as, for example, T-TRP 170 or NT-TRP 172 of fig. 1-3. The method starts in block 300, where a first level of DCI scrambled by a radio network temporary identifier (radio network temporary identifier, RNTI) is transmitted by a network element in a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH), where the first level of DCI explicitly indicates scheduling information of a second level of DCI. The method continues in block 302 in which a second level of DCI is transmitted by a network element in a first physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH), where the first PDSCH is a physical channel without data transmission. The first level DCI is blind decoded by the UE. The second-stage DCI does not require blind decoding because the scheduling information of the second-stage DCI is explicitly indicated by the first-stage DCI. The second-level DCI has at least one second-level DCI format, and the network device indicates the at least one second-level DCI format according to at least one of the first-level DCI and the second DCI. Optionally, the method includes block 304 involving sending RRC signaling for configuring an update of the at least one parameter.

Fig. 7B is a flowchart of a two-stage DCI reception method in combination with fig. 5A and 5B described above. The method of fig. 7B will be described as being performed by an apparatus having at least one processor, a computer readable storage medium, a transmitter, and a receiver. In some implementations, a computer-readable storage medium is operatively coupled to the at least one processor and stores a program for execution by the at least one processor. Programming may include instructions to perform the method of fig. 7B. In some implementations, the apparatus is a UE or an ED, such as, for example, ED 110 of fig. 1-3. The method begins in block 310, where a device receives first-level DCI in a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH) scrambled by a radio network temporary identifier (radio network temporary identifier, RNTI).

In some embodiments, the CRC of the first-stage DCI is scrambled by at least one of:

a device (e.g., UE) -specific RNTI, the N bits of scheduling information in the first-level DCI or the second-level DCI indicating at least one second-level DCI format;

a specific group common RNTI, the apparatus (e.g., UE) obtaining at least one second-level DCI format from the specific group common RNTI;

Unifying the group common RNTI, codewords of a second DCI scrambled by a specific group RNTI, the apparatus (e.g., UE) obtaining at least one second-level DCI format based on the specific group RNTI;

the unified group common RNTI, N bits of scheduling information in the first-level DCI or the second-level DCI, indicates at least one second-level DCI format.

In some embodiments, when the CRC of the first-stage DCI is scrambled by a UE-specific RNTI (e.g., C-RNTI or CS-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI or SP-CSI-RNTI), and the N bits of scheduling information in the first-stage DCI or the second-stage DCI indicate at least one second-stage DCI format.

In some embodiments, the CRC of the first-stage DCI is scrambled by a particular group common RNTI, which allows the first-stage DCI to be transmitted to a group of devices (e.g., UEs). Depending on the purpose of the first-stage DCI, a different specific group common RNTI may be used and also used to indicate the associated second-stage DCI format.

The following are examples of a specific set of common RNTIs:

for a slot format indication (slot format indication, SFI), the first-stage DCI is scrambled by an SFI-RNTI;

for the preemption indication, the first level DCI is scrambled by an Interrupt (INT) -RNTI;

for transmit power control (transit power control, TPC) commands of PUSCH, the first-stage DCI is scrambled by TPC-PUSCH-RNTI;

Other purposes for a particular set of common DCI are listed in section 7.3.1.3 of TS 38.212g 20.

The size of the first-stage DCI is the same when the CRC is scrambled by a specific group common RNTI for different purposes. Explicit second-level DCI format indications need not be included in the first-level DCI and the second-level DCI because the second-level DCI format is determined from a specific group common RNTI. The number of information bits in the second-level DCI of the format associated with the specific group common RNTI may be configured through RRC signaling. Table 1 below provides an example mapping from the group common RNTI for CRC scrambling to the second level DCI format.

Table 1: mapping from group common RNTI to second level DCI format

In some embodiments, the first-stage DCI is scrambled by the same group common RNTI for different purposes of the group common DCI, and thus, the group common RNTI cannot be used to indicate the second-stage DCI format. The group common RNTI, which is not limited to a specific purpose or has a plurality of purposes, is also referred to herein as a unified group common RNTI. In some such embodiments, N bits in the first-stage DCI are included as second-stage DCI format indicators.

Additionally, or alternatively, in some embodiments, where the CRC of the first-level DCI is scrambled using a uniform set of common RNTIs for receipt by a set of UEs, there is a specific set of common RNTIs for PDSCH scrambling for each different second-level DCI format. In this case, the codeword transmitted on the PDSCH carrying the second-level DCI is scrambled by a specific group common RNTI corresponding to the second-level DCI format. Scrambling the PDSCH carrying the second-level DCI may ensure reliability of the second-level DCI. In this case, the UE blindly decodes PDSCH with different RNTIs. For example, when the first-stage DCI is scrambled with a unified group common RNTI, the PDSCH is scrambled by the SFI-RNTI to indicate the format of the second-stage DCI for slot format indication. For example, when the first-stage DCI is scrambled with a unified group common RNTI, the PDSCH is scrambled by the SFI-RNTI to indicate the format of the second-stage DCI for slot format indication.

For example, when the first-level DCI is scrambled with a unified group common RNTI, the PDSCH is scrambled by the TPC-PUCCH-RNTI to indicate the format of the second-level DCI for PUCCH power control.

Alternatively, in some cases where the first-level DCI is scrambled by a unified set of common DCIs, a second-level DCI format indicator field is included in the second-level DCI to indicate the format, for example, in the first N bits of the second-level DCI.

Referring to fig. 7B, the method continues in block 312, where the device decodes a first-level DCI in a physical downlink control channel (physical downlink control channel, PDCCH), the first-level DCI explicitly indicating scheduling information of a second-level DCI.

In some embodiments, the first-level DCI explicitly indicating the scheduling information of the second-level DCI includes parameters of at least one of time resources, frequency resources, and spatial resources of the second-level DCI. The first-level DCI may further indicate at least a modulation order of the second-level DCI, a coding rate of the second-level DCI, part or all of scheduling information of data transmission. In some embodiments, the first-level DCI indicates scheduling information of the second-level DCI, and further includes partial scheduling information for data transmission, such as one or more of time/frequency/space resource allocation, modulation order, coding rate, HARQ information, UE feedback resources, power control of data.

Referring again to fig. 7B, the method continues in block 314 where the device receives a second level of DCI in a first physical downlink shared channel (physical downlink shared channel, PDSCH), where the first PDSCH is a physical channel with no data transmission.

In some embodiments, the scheduling information of the second-level DCI indicates parameters of at least one of time resources, frequency resources, and spatial resources of the second-level DCI. The first-level DCI may further indicate at least a modulation order of the second-level DCI, a coding rate of the second-level DCI, part or all of scheduling information of data transmission. The second-level DCI may include scheduling information of a data channel, e.g., PDSCH for DL scheduling and/or PUSCH for Uplink (UL) scheduling, e.g., time resources and/or frequency resources and/or spatial resources and/or an indication of modulation order and/or coding rate. For another example, scheduling information for data transmission, such as DL scheduling for PDSCH and/or UL scheduling for PUSCH and/or side uplink resources for UE transmission or reception. In some embodiments, the first-level DCI indicates scheduling information of the second-level DCI and further includes partial scheduling information of data transmission, such as one or more of time/frequency/spatial resource allocation, modulation order, coding rate, new data indicator, HARQ information, redundancy version, UE feedback resources, transmit power control, PUCCH resource indicator, one or more antenna ports, transmission configuration indication, code block group indicator, preemption indication, cancellation indication, availability indicator, resource pool index, or data power control. The second-level DCI includes additional detailed scheduling information for data, e.g., information not indicated by the first-level DCI, or an update to data information indicated by the first-level DCI. In some embodiments, the second level DCI may indicate at least one of the following for scheduling data transmission of the UE: scheduling information of one PDSCH in one carrier/BWP; scheduling information of a plurality of PDSCH in one carrier/BWP; scheduling information of one PUSCH in one carrier/BWP; scheduling information of a plurality of PUSCHs in one carrier/BWP; scheduling information of one PDSCH and one PUSCH in one carrier/BWP; scheduling information of one PDSCH and a plurality of PUSCHs in one carrier/BWP; scheduling information of a plurality of PDSCH and a PUSCH in one carrier/BWP; scheduling information of a plurality of PDSCH and a plurality of PDSCH in one carrier/BWP; side uplink scheduling information in one carrier/BWP; partial scheduling information of at least one PUSCH and/or at least one PDSCH in one carrier/BWP, wherein the partial scheduling information is an update of scheduling information in the first-level DCI; partial scheduling information of at least one PUSCH and/or at least one PDSCH, wherein remaining scheduling information of the at least one PUSCH and/or at least one PDSCH is included in the first-level DCI; configuration information related to an artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence, AI)/Machine Learning (ML) function; configuration information related to non-AI/ML functions.

For scheduling information in the second-level DCI, more information/configuration/functions may be supported, as described below, such as AI/ML mode, non-AI/ML mode, or sensing mode. In some embodiments, the second-level DCI may include a dynamic indication of whether an AI mode is applied to the scheduling information field or a non-AI mode is applied to the scheduling information field. For example, a 1-bit AI indicator field may be used for this purpose. In some embodiments, for some scheduling information fields included in the second-level DCI, a respective AI indicator field may be included for each of the plurality of fields. Alternatively, a given AI indicator field may be applied to a plurality of scheduling information fields included in the second-level DCI. When AI mode is applied to the scheduling information field, the value of the field does not directly indicate the scheduling information, but rather serves as an input to the AI inference engine that calculates the meaning of the scheduling information. On the other hand, when the AI mode is not applicable to the scheduling information field, the value of the field may be mapped directly to the meaning of the scheduling information field, for example using a table lookup.

An example of a definition of a 1-bit field indicating whether the scheduling information field is for AI mode is provided in table 2 below.

Table 2: AI indicator field

AI indicator	AI mode
		0	non-AI mode
1	AI mode

In a specific example, the second level includes a modulation and coding scheme (modulation and coding scheme, MCS) field, and the second level DCI indicates whether the MCS field in the DCI is for an AI mode or a non-AI mode. If not AI processing mode, the MCS field consists of M1 bits (e.g., 5 bits in NR) to indicate the modulation order and coding rate in the option list; otherwise, the MCS field is composed of M2 bits to indicate the input of the UE-side AI inference engine. Where M2 (e.g., 3 bits) may be different from M1. The UE uses the value of M2 bits as AI input to infer the exact values of modulation order and coding rate.

In this case, the total number of bits in the second-level DCI for indicating the MCS includes 1+m1 bits or 1+m2 bits, defined as follows:

AI indicator: 1 bit MCS:

if the non-AI mode is indicated, M1 bits; the M1 bits may be used to select an MCS from the MCS table;

if the AI mode is indicated, M2 bits; the M2 bits are input to the AI inference engine at the UE side to determine the MCS.

The values of M1 and M2 may be the same or different

Similar methods may be used for other types of scheduling information. Advantageously, by allowing dynamic switching between AI mode and non-AI mode, if the base station notices that the AI mode is not efficient or effective to use, the base station may switch to a legacy method and/or instruct a retraining process to maintain UE performance.

In some embodiments, for multiple (more than one) control information fields (e.g., multiple scheduling information) fields in the second-stage DCI, the second-stage DCI may indicate one of:

a non-AI mode is applied to the at least two scheduling information fields;

an AI mode is applied to one of the at least two scheduling information fields and a non-AI mode is applied to the other of the at least two scheduling information fields;

a separate AI mode is applied to each of the at least two scheduling information fields;

the joint AI mode is commonly applied to the at least two schedule fields.

This may be used for fields related to resource allocation (resource assignment, RA). For example, for a first field including time domain resource allocation (e.g., a field named "time domain resource allocation") and a second field including frequency domain resource allocation (e.g., a field named "frequency domain resource allocation") in the second-level DCI, a set of X bits may be used to indicate whether a joint AI is applied to the two fields, whether a separate AI is applied to the two fields, or whether an AI is applied to one field but not the other field, or whether an AI is not applied to the two fields.

When applying individual AI, each input is processed by the corresponding AI inference engine/module. When applying federated AI, a single or multiple inputs of an inference engine, or a pair of jointly optimized inference engines/modules, are used to generate values/meanings for multiple types of scheduling information. A single input may include bits from one or both fields in the DCI. For example, if the N1 bit field of the first control information field and the N2 bit field of the second control information field are included in the DCI, the N1 bits and the N2 bits together may be regarded as an n1+n2 bit field, and the N bits of the joint AI may be N bits in the n1+n2 bit field. On the other hand, when the separate AI is applied, the N1-bit field and the N2-bit field have separate functions, wherein the N1-bit field does not indicate control information associated with the N2-bit field. An example is shown in table 3 below, where a 3-bit field is used for this purpose.

For the joint AI mode, the BS uses N bits to indicate AI input for time and frequency resource allocation at the UE side. After the UE receives the second-level DCI, the value of N bits is used as AI input to infer the exact time and frequency resources allocated by the BS. For the individual AI indication, N1 bits are used to infer time domain resources by AI at the UE side and N2 bits are used to infer frequency domain resources by AI at the UE side.

For the non-AI mode of frequency domain resource allocation, a Resource Block (RB) position or a resource block group (resource block group, RBG) position is indicated to the UE in the second-level DCI. For the non-AI mode of time domain resource allocation, the allocated symbols are indicated to the UE. This may involve the use of a time resource allocation table, for example.

The benefit of this approach is a unified design for UEs with different AI capabilities and implementations.

Table 3: multi-field joint AI mode indication

For some scheduling information sent using DCI, this value changes slowly and dynamically indicating its presence may save bits. In some embodiments, for at least one scheduling information field, there is an associated indicator field indicating the presence or absence of the scheduling information field. If the indicator field indicates that the relevant scheduling information field exists, the UE obtains this field and uses the value in the field. If the indicator indicates that the associated scheduling information field is not present, this may have various meanings, such as:

a. Using a predefined value of the scheduling information field;

b. an RRC configuration value using the scheduling information field;

c. the value of the scheduling information field from the previous DCI is used.

There are several specific examples below, but it should be understood that this method can be applied to any field in the second-level DCI.

For example, in some embodiments, the second-level DCI may include a field to indicate whether the DCI includes scheduling information of two TBs or one TB, in which case the scheduling information of the second TB is omitted. The field may be regarded as a presence indicator of scheduling information for the second TB. In a specific example, the DCI includes the following:

2TB present indicator: 1 bit (0: 1TB only; 1:2 TB);

if the value of the 2TB presence indicator is 0, then a parameter set { MCS, NDI, RV }; and

if the value of the 2TB presence indicator is 1, then the two parameter sets { MCS, NDI, RV }.

For example, in some embodiments, the second-stage DCI may include a field "carrier indicator" indicating a carrier being scheduled, and the second-stage DCI includes an indicator field indicating whether this field is present.

For example, in some embodiments, the second-stage DCI may include a field "TPC" including transmit power control information, and the second-stage DCI includes an indicator field indicating whether this field exists.

For example, in some embodiments, the second-stage DCI may include a field "PUCCH resource indicator" and the second-stage DCI includes an indicator field indicating whether this field is present.

For example, in some embodiments, the second-stage DCI may include a field "BWP indicator" to indicate a bandwidth portion, and the second-stage DCI includes an indicator field to indicate whether this field exists. In a specific example, the second-level DCI includes the following for BWP:

presence indicator: 1 bit (0: no BWP indicates presence; 1: BWP indicates presence),

if the value of "BWP indication" is 0, it is 0 bit. The schedule BWP index is the same as the currently active BWP,

if the value of "BWP indication" is 1, 2 bits indicate BWP.

By adding a presence indicator in the second-level DCI, the amount of overhead is reduced for most of the time that the scheduling information is not changed.

In some embodiments, the scheduling information may indicate sensing related information. For BSs with sensing capabilities, sensing will facilitate communication. For example, sensing may provide useful information to the BS, such as UE location, doppler, beam direction, and image. When the BS can sense such information, less feedback information from the UE may be required. In some embodiments, BS sensing capabilities are indicated to the UE, e.g., in terms of whether sensing is enabled or disabled at the BS, e.g., by master information block (master information block, MIB), system information (system information, SI), radio resource control (radio resource control, RRC) signaling, medium access control (medium access control, MAC) -Control Entity (CE), DCI.

In some embodiments, the content or number of bits of uplink control information (uplink control information, UCI) sent by the UE depends on whether sensing is enabled. Channel state information (Channel state information, CSI) is one type of UCI, which includes several types: precoding matrix indicator (precoding matrix indication, PMI), rank Indicator (RI), layer Indicator (LI), channel quality information (channel quality information, CQI), CSI-RS resource indicator (CSI-RS resource indicator, CRI), SSBRI (SS/PBCH (physical broadcast channel) resource block indicator), reference signal received power (reference signal received power, RSRP).

When sensing is not enabled, the UE measures and reports some CSI types to the BS; when sensing is enabled, the UE measures and reports fewer CSI types to the BS, e.g., sends a subset of CSI types when sensing is not enabled. In a specific example, the UE measures and reports PMI, RI, CQI when sensing is not enabled; and the UE measures and reports PMI, RI when sensing is enabled, and CQI is obtained through sensing capability.

In some embodiments, for at least one CSI type, the number of bits reported by the UE is different when sensing is enabled compared to when sensing is not enabled. When sensing is enabled, there are fewer bits for reporting. Examples of CSI-RS resource indicators (CSI-RS Resource indicator, CRI), synchronization signal block resource indicators (synchronization signal block resource indicator, SSBRI), reference signal received power (reference signal receive power, RSRP), and differential RSRP are shown in table 4 below, wherein And->For the number of CSI-RS resources in the corresponding resource sets s1 and s2, +.>Is the SS/PBCH block of the resource set configuration number.

Table 4: sensing bit width of non-enabled and sensing enabled CSI fields

In some embodiments, the second level DCI includes one or more bits, e.g., a "CSI request" field, to indicate a CSI report type, including no sensing or band sensing, and to trigger a CSI report.

Referring to fig. 7B, the method continues in block 316 with the apparatus decoding the second-level DCI in the first PDSCH. The first level DCI is blind decoded by the UE. The second-level DCI has at least one second-level DCI format, and the apparatus obtains the at least one second-level DCI format from at least one of the first-level DCI and the second DCI. Since the scheduling information of the second-stage DCI is explicitly indicated by the first-stage DCI, the second-stage DCI does not need blind decoding.

In some embodiments, for the second level DCI, there are multiple DCI formats. Each second-level DCI format is used for a particular purpose. Specific examples of format sets are as follows:

format 2-1 is a format that schedules one UL transmission on one carrier, e.g., may be used to schedule one PUSCH on one carrier;

format 2-2 is a format that schedules one DL transmission on one carrier, e.g., may be used to schedule one PDSCH on one carrier;

Format 2-3 is a format in which multiple UL transmissions are scheduled on one carrier, or multiple UL transmissions are scheduled on multiple carriers, e.g., N carriers are scheduled, and each carrier schedules one UL transmission; this may be used, for example, to schedule multiple PUSCHs with separate modulation and coding schemes (modulation and coding scheme, MCS)/new data indicator (new data indicator, NDI)/redundancy version (redundancy version, RV) in one carrier or multiple carriers;

formats 2-4 are formats that schedule multiple downlink transmissions on one carrier, or multiple downlink transmissions on multiple carriers, e.g., N carriers are scheduled, and one downlink transmission is scheduled on each carrier; for example, this may be used to schedule multiple PDSCH with separate MCS/NDI/RV in one carrier or in multiple carriers;

formats 2-5 are formats that schedule one DL transmission and one UL transmission on one carrier, or one DL transmission and one UL transmission on another carrier, which may be used to schedule one PDSCH and one PUSCH in one carrier or in multiple carriers, for example;

formats 2-6 are formats that schedule one DL transmission and multiple UL transmissions, or one UL transmission and multiple DL transmissions, or multiple DL transmissions and multiple UL transmissions, in one carrier or multiple carriers, which may be used to schedule one or more PDSCH and one or more PUSCH in one carrier or multiple carriers, for example;

Formats 2-7 are formats that schedule side links in a carrier or carriers;

formats 2-8 are formats of scheduling information including UE data 1 and UE data 2. For example, the information bits in DCI include two parts: part 1 consists of downlink data, e.g. for downlink ultra reliable low latency (downlink ultra reliable low latency, URLLC) services; part 2 consists of DL/UL scheduling information, e.g. for another data packet.

In some embodiments, the second level formats 2-1 through 2-8 described above are predefined as shown in Table 5 below. In one option, the BS and the UE may store table 5, and when the UE receives the formats and looks up table 5 to obtain the format usage information, the BS schedules one or more formats and transmits them in the bit field of the first DCI or the second DCI. In another option, the bs may explicitly indicate usage information to the device without a lookup table, by applying only a few second DCI formats 2-1 to 2-8, e.g., only formats 2-7 for devices in the side-link, as actually needed. The second level formats 2-1 through 2-8 are examples of some use cases and further uses of the second level formats defined according to communication requirements in future communication systems are not limited.

Table 5: second-level DCI format

Taking the above-described second-level formats 2-1 through 2-8 as an example, an N-bit second-level DCI format indicator may be used to indicate the second-level formats 2-1 through 2-8. In some embodiments, N bits, e.g., the first N bits, of the second-stage DCI are used to indicate the second-stage DCI format. The procedure performed by the receiving UE is as follows: after the UE obtains the first-stage DCI through blind decoding, the UE obtains scheduling information of a PDSCH transport block carrying the second-stage DCI from the first DCI. Then, the UE decodes the transport block and obtains information bits of the second-level DCI. The UE then uses the N bits of the second-level DCI to determine the second-level DCI format used. Based on the second-level DCI format used, the UE may determine other DCI fields according to the second-level DCI format used. The value of N may depend on the number of second-level DCI formats available (assuming a total of M), for example, if m=7, N may be set to 3, and the first 3 bits of the second-stage DCI are a field including a second-stage DCI format indicator. For the case of n=3, an example mapping between the second-level DCI format indicator and the second-level DCI format is shown in table 6 below, and there are 8 second-level DCI formats.

Table 6: second-level DCI format

Second-level DCI format indicator	Format of the form
		000	2-1
001	2-2
		010	2-3
011	2-4
		100	2-5
101	2-6
		110	2-7
111	2-8

In some embodiments, the above method is used when the CRC of the first level DCI is scrambled by a device (UE) specific RNTI (e.g., C-RNTI or CS-RNTI or MCS-C-RNTI or SP-CSI-RN), where the N bits of the second level DCI indicate the second level DCI format TI.

Referring to fig. 7B, the method continues in block 318 where RRC signaling is received to configure an update of at least one parameter, which may be an optional step. Some parameters may be dynamically configured by RRC. Examples include:

waveform type: such as OFDM or SC-FDM;

CSI and beam management framework: for example, whether AI is enabled for CSI measurement and feedback, CSI-RS mode, CSI-RS position;

demodulation reference symbol (Demodulation reference symbol, DMRS) resource configuration: DMRS pattern, DMRS position, additional DMRS position;

PDCCH monitoring opportunities: PDCCH monitoring period, symbol position and energy-saving timer;

AI training period: start or end timing of AI training; and

AI execution cycle: start or end timing of AI execution.

In some embodiments, for each of the at least one parameter of the RRC configuration, the second-level DCI includes an indication of whether the parameter of the RRC configuration is being updated by the second-level DCI. For values being updated, the second level DCI includes updated parameter values. For example, the parameter may use a bit to indicate whether the value is updated. The benefit of this approach is that when the configured RRC parameter is no longer the optimal value for the UE, the value can be updated using the second level DCI to achieve the optimal performance for the UE.

The above embodiment has the following advantages:

flexible functions are supported using a second level of DCI;

unifying AI and non-AI indications, dynamic switching between AI mode and non-AI mode;

dynamic indication of joint AI or individual AI for multiple modules;

dynamically indicating that there are some slowly varying fields; and

flexible spectrum (carrier/BWP) scheduling, flexible multi-transmission (DL/UL/SL/unlicensed/NTN) scheduling.

Based on the embodiments of fig. 7A and 7B, the PDCCH and PDSCH structures may be seen in fig. 6 above. Further, the first-stage DCI and the second-stage DCI may be transmitted in TDM or FDM disclosed in the above-described embodiments of fig. 5A and 5B.

In some embodiments, the first and second stage DCIs are frequency domain multiplexed (frequency domain multiplexed, FDM), meaning that the occupied symbols of the first and second stage DCIs partially/completely overlapping, but the occupied frequency resources are different. Fig. 11 shows an example. In fig. 11, time is on the horizontal axis, for example representing OFDM symbols, and frequency is on the vertical axis.

If the same occupation symbol is used for the first-stage DCI and the second-stage DCI that are predefined or RRC configured, there is no need to indicate the time-domain position of the second-stage DCI in the first-stage DCI. On the other hand, if different occupied symbols of the first-stage DCI and the second-stage DCI are to be supported, the first-stage DCI may indicate symbol positions of the second-stage DCI within the same PDCCH monitoring occasion or the same slot.

In some embodiments, the first-stage DCI and the second-stage DCI are time-domain multiplexed (time domain multiplexed, TDM), which means that the occupation symbols of the first-stage DCI and the second-stage DCI do not partially/fully overlap in time. Fig. 12 shows an example. For such embodiments, one or more symbol positions of the second-stage DCI are indicated by the first-stage DCI.

Based on the TDM example of fig. 12 or the FDM example of fig. 11, the reference signals (e.g., DMRS) have different DMRS patterns and DMRS locations. In the following description, the expression "pre-loaded DMRS" means that the DMRS precedes the data channel, or is in the first several symbols of the data channel; furthermore, the expression "post-loaded DMRS" means that the DMRS follows the data channel or in the last few symbols of the data channel.

For DMRS patterns of first-level DCI, second-level DCI, UE data (PDSCH/PUSCH), there are 3 types, examples of which are shown in fig. 13:

type 1: the Resource Elements (REs) of the DMRS and the REs of the DCI/UE data are frequency multiplexed in one Resource Block (RB). For example, REs of the DMRS may be included in symbols having a density of 1/4. An example is shown in fig. 13, indicated generally at 800;

type 2: time domain multiplexing between resource elements of DMRS and REs of DCI/UE data. The symbol lengths of DMRS and DCI/UE data are the same. An example is shown in fig. 13, indicated generally at 802;

Type 3: time domain multiplexing between DMRS and REs of DCI/UE data, and shorter symbol length of DMRS, wherein subcarrier spacing (subcarrier spacing, SCS) of DMRS and REs of DCI/UE data may be the same or different. The first example is shown in fig. 13, indicated generally at 804, where the same subcarrier spacing is used, and the second example is shown in fig. 13, indicated generally at 806, where different subcarrier spacing is used.

The DMRS types of the first-level DCI, the second-level DCI, and the UE data (PDSCH/PUSCH) may be:

the available DMRS types for all types of DCI (including primary DCI, primary and secondary DCI) are the same. UE data has different DMRS types.

The available DMRS types of DCI carried by PDCCH, i.e. first-level DCI and first-level DCI, are the same. For the second-level DCI of the PDSCH bearer, the available DMRS type may be different from the type of DCI of the PDCCH bearer, e.g., may be the same as the PDSCH of the UE data.

In some embodiments, the DMRS of the second level DCI is also used for the UE data. In other words, the DMRS for channel estimation of UE data includes DMRS of the second-level DCI.

A first example is shown in fig. 14, indicated generally at 900. In this example, the second-level DCI has a pre-loaded DMRS, and the PDSCH has a pre-loaded DMRS. Channel estimation of PDSCH is based on pre-loaded DMRS of second-level DCI and pre-loaded DRMS of PDSCH. A corresponding example of a post-loaded DMRS for second-level DCI is indicated at 902. This approach is more suitable for sharing with PDSCH because the post-loading DMRS is less outdated with respect to data transmission.

As shown in fig. 14, in the overlapping frequency region of the second-stage DCI and the PDSCH, REs including DMRS (or less REs including DMRS) exist on the front symbol of the PDSCH; in this overlapping frequency region, DMRS of the second-stage DCI is used. In the non-overlapping frequency region of the second-stage DCI and PDSCH, there are REs including pre-loaded DMRS of the PDSCH.

Additional examples of shared DMRS for second-stage DCI and PDSCH applicable to applications with low peak-to-average power ratio (peak average power ratio, PAPR) waveforms are shown in fig. 15. In these examples, in the second-level DCI, the REs of the DMRS are time-domain multiplexed with the REs of the DCI. The second level DCI occupies the same PRB location as the scheduled PDSCH transmission. In the example indicated generally at 910, there is a pre-loaded DMRS of the DCI, and in the example indicated generally at 912, there is a post-loaded DMRS of the DCI.

Alternatively, DMRS cannot be shared between DCI and PDSCH. For the second-level DCI, there may be a separate configuration for DMRS, and for UE data, there may be a separate configuration for PDSCH. For example, for low PAPR waveforms, there may be separate DMRS for the second level DCI and PDSCH. An example is shown in fig. 16, indicated generally at 920.

These embodiments provide details of possible DMRS types for the first-stage DCI, the second-stage DCI, and the PDSCH for the UE data.

Based on the embodiments in fig. 7A and 7B, in some embodiments, two-level DCI is used for a system employing a single carrier. In some embodiments, two-level DCI is used in a system employing carrier aggregation (carrier aggregation, CA) or Dual Carrier (DC) to reduce the number of UE blind decodes and reduce scheduling overhead.

In an embodiment of two-stage DCI using CA or DC, the UE performs recovery of the first-stage DCI in one carrier, as in the other embodiments described above. For example, the UE may monitor the primary component carrier (primary component carrier, PCC) of the first-stage DCI using blind detection. As before, the first-level DCI indicates scheduling information of the second-level DCI. However, in this embodiment, the second-stage DCI may be located in the same carrier as the first-stage DCI or in a different carrier (e.g., a secondary component carrier), and the second-stage DCI indicates scheduling information of one or more carriers. The scheduling information of each carrier may be DL, UL, DL and UL or side-link. The scheduling information for each carrier may be for one transmission or for multiple transmissions (e.g., multiple slot scheduling with each slot having the same or different TBs). In some embodiments, the second level DCI may indicate whether scheduling information is present for a given carrier. In this case, for a given carrier, when the indication indicates that scheduling information of the carrier exists, the second-level DCI includes the scheduling information of the carrier.

Fig. 10 shows an example. A first level of DCI 700 on PCC 722 and a second level of DCI 702 also on PCC 722 are shown. The first-stage DCI 700 includes an indication of time-frequency resources of the second-stage DCI 702. Although in this example the second-stage DCI is on the same carrier as the first-stage DCI, alternatively it may be on a different carrier, which will be indicated in the first-stage DCI. The second-level DCI 702 includes scheduling information for scheduling data transmission 704 transmitted on PCC 702, scheduling information for scheduling data transmissions 706, 708 transmitted on second carrier SCC1 722, and scheduling information for scheduling data transmission 710 transmitted on third carrier SCC2 724.

Using two levels of DCI in this manner may reduce the number of blind decodes of CA/DC. If the number of carriers increases, the number of blind decodes does not increase accordingly.

Referring to fig. 5A, 5B, and 10, in some embodiments, scheduling multiple PDSCH and/or PUSCH may be performed in one carrier or multiple carriers (e.g., CA and DC). In some embodiments, information bits in the second-level DCI for scheduling multiple PDSCH and/or PUSCH are mapped in a predefined order. For example, the second-level DCI may schedule one PDSCH and one PUSCH in one carrier, and information bits of the second-level DCI are mapped in the order of downlink scheduling information and then uplink scheduling information, and vice versa.

In some embodiments, when scheduling for multiple carriers (e.g., CA or DC), including DL/UL/side-uplink/unlicensed/NTN scheduling, information is included to indicate the carrier being scheduled, and for each carrier how many UL or DL or SL transmissions are being scheduled. In a specific example, each schedulable carrier has a carrier index, and the following information may be sent to the UE in a predefined location, such as the first N bits of the second level DCI:

to indicate one or more carriers being scheduled:

one or more bits indicating a number of scheduled carriers;

for each carrier being scheduled, one or more bits of a carrier index are indicated.

In some embodiments, for each carrier, one or more bits indicating how many transmissions are being scheduled on the carrier each; for example, for each carrier:

DL transmission number

UL transmission number

Number of side-uplink transmissions

Then, separate scheduling information is included in the second-level DCI for each DL/UL/SL transmission. In some embodiments, for multiple DL schedules, one copy of PUCCH related indication applicable to all DL schedules is included, e.g. one TPC command, PUCCH resource indicator for scheduling PUCCH.

In some embodiments, the second-level DCI format is a format including first UE data (UE data 1) for a UE and including scheduling information for second UE data (UE data 2) for a UE not included in the second-level DCI. At this time, the information bits of the second-level DCI may include:

data size indicator: indicating the size of the first UE data in the second-level DCI;

UE data: the number of UE data bits is indicated by a data size indicator, the bits being for DL codewords included in the second-stage DCI;

scheduling information: time/frequency/space resource allocation information of another or two codewords not included in the second-level DCI.

In a specific example, the data size indicator is N1 bits, the UE data is N2 bits, and the scheduling information is N3 bits.

In some embodiments, PDSCH and/or PUSCH for transmitting UE data using Transport Blocks (TBs) defining basic information bit units for the PDSCH carrying UE data, e.g. information bits from the MAC layer, MAC PDUs (protocol data units) mapped to TBs; for PDSCH carrying second level DCI, the DCI is mapped to a TB, e.g., according to any embodiment described herein. The transport block size (transport block size, TBS) is defined as the size (number of bits) of the TB. The TB is the information bit before CRC and channel coding. Alternatively, the TB may be defined to include a CRC. The codeword is the (tb+crc) channel encoded bits.

In some embodiments, the number of information bits in the second-stage DCI is the same as the TB size of the PDSCH for the second-stage DCI.

In some embodiments, if the number of information bits in the second-stage DCI before padding is less than the total number of bits of information bits that can be carried by one or more TBs of the PDSCH for carrying the second-stage DCI, some 0 or 1 padding bits are generated and included in the second-stage DCI until the number of bits of the second-stage DCI is equal to the number of bits of one or more TBs of the PDSCH for carrying the second-stage DCI.

The following is an example of filling. The content of the second level DCI includes:

format indicator: 3 bits;

time domain resource allocation: 3 bits;

frequency domain resource allocation: 10 bits;

MCS:5 bits; and

HARQ information: 5 bits

So that the total number of bits of the second-stage DCI is 26 bits.

For PDSCH carrying the second-level DCI, the PDSCH may carry 30 information bits (i.e., the TB size is 30 bits) according to scheduling information in the first-level DCI (e.g., set by allocated RBs and number of symbols, coding rate). Now, 4 padding bits are included in the second-stage DCI so that the second-stage DCI is the same size as the TB.

In some embodiments, if the number of information bits in the second-stage DCI before the puncturing is greater than the total number of bits that can be carried by one or more TBs for PDSCH carrying the second-stage DCI, the number of information bits of the second-stage DCI is reduced, e.g., by puncturing the last few least significant bits, such that the size of the second-stage DCI is equal to the size of one or more TBs of PDSCH carrying the second-stage DCI.

Advantageously, using the provided method, there may be a reduction in the number of blind decodes, as only blind decoding of the first-stage DCI may need to be performed, and the second-stage DCI does not need blind detection, thereby reducing the number of blind decodes. The method also allows the second-level DCI to have flexible DCI sizes and enables more flexible scheduling, so that not only forward compatibility (limited/fixed size of the first-level DCI) but also more flexible DCI sizes of the first-level DCI and the second-level DCI can be achieved according to different requirements. In addition, in some embodiments, the number of formats and/or the number of sizes of the first-stage DCI is limited to a small number, which results in a small amount of blind decoding being required to recover the first-stage DCI.

Scheduling parameters of PDSCH carrying second level DCI and data

Referring to fig. 5A, 5B, 6, 7A, 7B, PDSCH carrying the second-level DCI may be regarded as more important to the UE as compared to PDSCH carrying downlink data. In some embodiments, the base station takes one or more steps to improve the robustness of PDSCH carrying the second level DCI. This may involve, for example, using a lower modulation order, a lower coding rate, or single layer transmission for the second level DCI. For PDSCH carrying downlink data, BS may schedule with lower reliability requirements to achieve better performance, e.g., high throughput.

In some embodiments, one or more available values of scheduling parameters for scheduling PDSCH carrying the second-level DCI are different from corresponding values for scheduling PDSCH carrying downlink data. The available value sets may be individually predefined or may be individually configured by the base station. A specific example set is described in detail below.

Retransmission: there is no retransmission of PDSCH carrying the second-level DCI, so hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) related information (e.g., new data indicator (new data indicator, NDI), redundancy version (redundancy version, RV), HARQ process, downlink allocation index (downlink allocation index, DAI), HARQ timing, transmit power control (transmit power control, TPC) command of scheduling PUCCH, PUCCH resource indicator) is not included in the first-level DCI, on the other hand, HARQ related information is present in the first-level DCI of scheduling PDSCH in order to support retransmission of PDSCH carrying downlink data.

Modulation order: the PDSCH carrying the second-level DCI and the PDSCH carrying the data may use a fixed or smaller modulation order set. In a specific example, for PDSCH carrying downlink data, the available values include {2,4,6} or {2,4,6,8}, while for PDSCH carrying the second level of DCI, a predefined modulation order is used, e.g., 1 or 2, or a smaller set (or subset) than PDSCH carrying downlink data, e.g., {2,4} or {2,4,6}.

Coding rate: for PDSCH carrying the second level DCI, there may be a smaller set of coding rates than the set available for PDSCH carrying downlink data. In some embodiments, the maximum value of the coding rate of PDSCH carrying the second-stage DCI is less than the maximum value of the coding rate of PDSCH carrying the downlink data.

MIMO layer: for PDSCH carrying the second level DCI, the maximum allowed layer may be smaller. For example, PDSCH carrying the second level DCI may have 1 layer or 2 layers compared to 8 layers of PDSCH carrying downlink data.

Frequency/time domain resource allocation: the bit length of the time/frequency domain resource allocation field in the DCI scheduling PDSCH carrying the second-stage DCI may be shorter than the bit length in the DCI scheduling PDSCH carrying the downlink data.

The following examples are shown in fig. 8: the first-stage DCI 600 schedules the second-stage DCI 602 with QPSK, layer 1, and maximum coding rate 0.5, and the second-stage DCI 602 schedules the data 604 with up to 64QAM, up to 8 layers, and maximum coding rate 0.92.

Referring to fig. 5A and 5B, fig. 9A is a flowchart of a transmitting side method based on the above-described embodiment. The method begins in block 530, where a first level of DCI is transmitted indicating scheduling information for a second level of DCI, the scheduling information including values from a first set of values for a scheduling parameter. The method continues in block 532 where the second-level DCI is transmitted using PDSCH resources indicated by scheduling information in the first-level DCI. The method continues in block 534 in which downlink data is transmitted using PDSCH resources indicated by scheduling information in the second-level DCI including values from the second set of values of the scheduling parameters.

Fig. 9B is a flowchart of a receiving side method based on the above-described embodiment. The method begins in block 550, where a first level of DCI in a PDCCH is received indicating scheduling information for a second level of DCI, the scheduling information including values from a first set of values for a scheduling parameter. The method continues in block 552, where the second-level DCI is received using PDSCH resources indicated by scheduling information in the first-level DCI. The method continues in block 554 in which downlink data is received using PDSCH resources indicated by scheduling information in the second-level DCI including values from the second set of values of the scheduling parameters. The first/second value sets may be predefined or configured by the network device. For example, the modulation order configuration of the first set of values may be {2}, and the modulation order configuration of the second set of values may be {2,4,6}

9A and 9B, one option is that the first and second sets of values are used to indicate one or more of the following:

the first and second sets of values are individually predefined or configured to indicate whether retransmission is enabled;

the retransmission related parameter may be at least one of HARQ related information including at least one of NDI, RV, HARQ procedure, DAI, HARQ timing, TPC command to schedule PUCCH, PUCCH resource indicator if retransmission is enabled in a first value set of the retransmission related parameters configured in the value set;

The first and second sets of values are individually predefined or configured to indicate modulation order options, one option, the first set of values being a predefined or configured modulation order, e.g. 1 or 2, the second set of values being configured with {2,4} or {2,4,6,8} from any of the available sets {2,4,6} or {2,4, 6}. Another option is that the first set of values associated with the modulation order is configured as a smaller set or subset than the second set of values;

the first and second sets of values are individually predefined or configured to indicate a coding rate option, one option, the maximum value of the coding rate configured in the first set of values being less than the maximum value of the coding rate configured in the second set of values, e.g., the maximum value of the coding rate configured in the first set of values is 0.5 and the maximum value of the coding rate configured in the second set of values is 0.95. Another option is that the coding rate can be flexibly configured according to different requirements;

the first and second value sets are individually predefined or configured with an option for indicating a number of Transport Blocks (TBs); one option, the first set of values associated with the number of TBs is fixed, e.g., one TB, and the second set of values associated with the number of TBs is flexibly configured with one or more TBs; another option, the first and second value sets associated with the number of TBs are flexibly configured with one or more TBs;

The first and second sets of values are individually predefined or configured with options for indicating the number of MIMO layers; one option, the maximum MIMO layer number (e.g., 2) configured in the first set of values is less than the maximum MIMO layer number (e.g., 8) configured in the second set of values; another option, the number of MIMO layers in the first value set is predefined as 1 or 2, and the number of MIMO layers in the second value set is configured as any one of 1, 2, 4, 6, 8;

the first and second sets of values are used separately for options indicating the time/frequency domain resource allocation type and/or location. One option is that the bit length configuration of the time/frequency domain resource field associated with the first set of values is shorter than the bit length of the time/frequency domain resource field associated with the second set of values. In another option, the bit length of the time/frequency domain resource field associated with the first set of values and the bit length of the time/frequency domain resource field associated with the second set of values are flexibly configured according to different requirements.

Advantageously, in these embodiments, the first set of values of PDSCH carrying the second-stage DCI and the second set of values of PDSCH carrying downlink data, the available values of scheduling parameters for scheduling the two PDSCH may be predefined or configured separately by the BS, ensuring the reliability of the second-stage DCI, and reducing the scheduling overhead in the first-stage DCI.

First-grade DCI

In some embodiments, the base station may use a primary DCI in addition to a first-stage DCI for scheduling a second-stage DCI, which is a standalone DCI that is not used to schedule the second-stage DCI, for some purposes. For example, the primary DCI may be used for system information, paging, or random access. In these cases, the CRC of the primary DCI is scrambled by SI-RNTI, P-RNTI, RA-RNT, respectively. Examples of the primary DCI include fallback DCI in 5G NR, and DCI formats 0_0 and 1_0.

Advantageously, the provided method supports a number of second-level DCI formats for flexible scheduling. In addition, when N bits of the second-level DCI are used to indicate the second-level DCI format, the UE may obtain this format without performing blind decoding.

Many modifications and variations of the present disclosure are possible in light of the above teachings. It is, therefore, to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims, the disclosure may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described herein.

Claims

1. A method in an apparatus for receiving Downlink Control Information (DCI), the method comprising:

receiving, by the apparatus, a first-level DCI scrambled by a Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), wherein the first-level DCI explicitly indicates scheduling information of a second-level DCI;

Receiving, by the apparatus, the second level of DCI in a first Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), wherein the first PDSCH is a physical channel without data transmission;

wherein the second-level DCI has at least one second-level DCI format, and the apparatus obtains the at least one second-level DCI format from at least one of the first-level DCI and the second DCI.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the apparatus obtains the at least one DCI format according to one of;

the first-stage DCI scrambled by a device-specific RNTI, N bits of the scheduling information in the first-stage DCI or the second-stage DCI indicating the at least one second-stage DCI format;

the first-stage DCI scrambled by a specific group public RNTI, the apparatus obtaining the at least one second-stage DCI format according to the specific group public RNTI;

the first-stage DCI scrambled by a unified group common RNTI, a codeword of the second DCI scrambled by a specific group RNTI, and the apparatus obtaining the at least one second-stage DCI format from the specific group RNTI;

the first-stage DCI scrambled by a unified group common RNTI, N bits of the scheduling information in the first-stage DCI or the second-stage DCI indicating the at least one second-stage DCI format.

3. The method of any one of claims 1 and 2, wherein the at least one second-level DCI format comprises a predefined relationship between at least one second-level DCI format indicator and at least one scheduling information format, and the at least one scheduling information format comprises one of:

a format for scheduling one PUSCH in one carrier;

a format for scheduling one PDSCH in one carrier;

a format for scheduling multiple PUSCHs with separate MCS/NDI/RVs in one carrier or in multiple carriers;

a format for scheduling multiple PDSCH with separate MCS/NDI/RV in one carrier or in multiple carriers;

formats for scheduling one PDSCH and one PUSCH in one carrier or in a plurality of carriers;

formats for scheduling PDSCH(s) and PUSCH(s) in one carrier or in multiple carriers;

a format for scheduling side uplinks in a carrier or carriers;

a format for including scheduling information and UE data;

a format for indicating a slot format;

a format for preemption indication;

formats for power control of PUSCH or PUCCH; and

format for power control of SRS.

4. A method according to any of claims 2 and 3, wherein the specific group common RNTI comprises one of: slot Format Indication (SFI) -RNTI, INT-RNTI, transmit Power Control (TPC) -PUSCH-RNTI, TPC-Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) -RNTI, TPC-Sounding Reference Symbol (SRS) -RNTI.

5. The method according to any one of claim 1 to 4, wherein,

the number of information bits in the second-level DCI is the same as a Transport Block (TB) size of the first PDSCH.

6. The method according to any one of claim 1 to 5, wherein,

generating some 0 or 1 padding bits for the second-stage DCI when the number of information bits in the second-stage DCI before padding is less than the total number of bits of a transport block carrying the second-stage DCI, such that the number of bits is equal to the number of bits of the TB carrying the second-stage DCI; and

when the number of information bits in the second-stage DCI before interception is greater than the total number of bits of a Transport Block (TB) carrying the second-stage DCI, intercepting bits included in the second-stage DCI so that the number of bits is equal to the number of bits of the TB carrying the second-stage DCI.

7. The method according to any one of claim 1 to 6, wherein,

The scheduling information includes 1 bit indicating an AI mode or a non-AI mode.

8. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein,

the scheduling information includes at least one Artificial Intelligence (AI) indicator field, wherein each AI indicator field is for a respective at least one scheduling information field of the second-level DCI;

each AI indicator field indicates whether an AI mode or a non-AI mode is applied to the corresponding at least one scheduling information field of the second-stage DCI.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one scheduling information is at least one of:

frequency domain/time domain resource allocation, modulation order, coding scheme, new data indicator, redundancy version, hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) related information, transmit power control, PUCCH resource indicator, one or more antenna ports, transmission configuration indication, code block group indicator, preemption indication, cancel indication, availability indicator, resource pool index.

10. The method of claim 8 or claim 9, further comprising, for each scheduling information field for which an AI indicator field exists:

when the AI indicator field of the schedule information field indicates an AI mode, a received value of the schedule information field is used as an input to an AI inference engine for determining a meaning of the schedule information field;

When the AI indicator field of the scheduling information field indicates a non-AI mode, a received value of the scheduling information field is mapped to a meaning of the scheduling information field.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein for at least one of the at least one AI indicator field, the respective at least one scheduling information field comprises at least two scheduling information fields, and wherein the AI indicator field indicates one of:

a non-AI mode is applied to the at least two scheduling information fields;

the joint AI mode is commonly applied to the at least two schedule fields.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least two scheduling information fields comprise one of a plurality of bit fields having a relationship with time Resource Allocation (RA) and frequency domain RA, and wherein the AI indicator is as follows:

13. the method according to any one of claims 1 to 12, wherein,

The second-level DCI includes an indication of the presence or absence of the at least one scheduling information field in the second-level DCI;

and when the dynamic indication indicates that the at least one scheduling information field exists, obtaining the at least one scheduling information field from the second-stage DCI.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

when the dynamic indication indicates that the at least one scheduling information field is not present, for each of the at least one scheduling information field:

using a predefined value of the scheduling information field; or alternatively, the first and second heat exchangers may be,

an RRC configuration value using the scheduling information field; or alternatively, the first and second heat exchangers may be,

the value of the scheduling information field from the previous DCI is used.

15. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 14, wherein the scheduling information comprises:

one or more bits indicating the number of carriers being scheduled;

for each carrier being scheduled, one or more bits of a carrier index indicating the carrier being scheduled;

for each carrier being scheduled, indicating how many transmissions are being scheduled on the carrier for one or more bits each; and

Scheduling information for each transmission being scheduled.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein indicating how many of the one or more bits each are being scheduled for transmission on the carrier comprises:

one or more bits indicating how many downlink transmissions are being scheduled;

one or more bits indicating how many uplink transmissions are being scheduled; and

one or more bits indicating how many side-link transmissions are being scheduled.

17. The method of any one of claims 1 to 16, further comprising:

the device receives an indicator indicating sense enable or sense disable.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the indicator is received by the apparatus via Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, DCI, or a medium access control-control entity (MAC-CE).

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

the apparatus transmits a Channel State Information (CSI) report, wherein a content of the CSI report or a number of bits of at least one type of uplink control information included in the CSI report depends on whether sensing is enabled.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein a number of bits of at least one type of uplink control information indicates one or more reference signals, the one or more reference signals include a CSI-RS (channel state information-reference symbol) resource indicator (CRI), a Synchronization Signal Block Resource Indicator (SSBRI), a Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP), or a differential RSRP, and the one or more reference signals are related to a bit width without sensing and a bit width with sensing as follows:

21. A method in a network device for transmitting Downlink Control Information (DCI), the method comprising:

transmitting, by the network device, a first-level DCI scrambled by a Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), wherein the first-level DCI explicitly indicates scheduling information of a second-level DCI;

transmitting, by the network device, the second level DCI in a first Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), wherein the first PDSCH is a physical channel with no data transmission;

wherein the second-level DCI has at least one second-level DCI format, and the network device indicates the at least one second-level DCI format according to at least one of the first-level DCI and the second DCI.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the network device indicates the at least one DCI format based on one of:

the first-stage DCI scrambled by a specific group common RNTI, the specific group common RNTI indicating the at least one second-stage DCI format;

The first-stage DCI scrambled by a unified group common RNTI, a codeword of the second DCI scrambled by a specific group RNTI, and a network device specific group RNTI indicating the at least one second-stage DCI format;

23. The method of any one of claims 21 and 22, wherein the at least one second-level DCI format comprises a predefined relationship between at least one second-level DCI format indicator and at least one scheduling information format, and the at least one scheduling information format comprises one of:

a format for scheduling one PUSCH in one carrier;

a format for scheduling one PDSCH in one carrier;

a format for scheduling side uplinks in a carrier or carriers;

a format for including scheduling information and UE data;

a format for indicating a slot format;

a format for preemption indication;

formats for power control of PUSCH or PUCCH; and

format for power control of SRS.

24. The method according to any of claims 22 and 23, wherein the specific group common RNTI comprises one of: slot Format Indication (SFI) -RNTI, INT-RNTI, transmit Power Control (TPC) -PUSCH-RNTI, TPC-Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) -RNTI, TPC-Sounding Reference Symbol (SRS) -RNTI.

25. The method according to any one of claims 21 to 24, wherein,

26. The method according to any one of claims 21 to 25, wherein,

27. The method according to any one of claims 21 to 26, wherein,

28. The method according to any one of claims 21 to 27, wherein,

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the at least one scheduling information is at least one of:

30. The method of claim 28 or claim 29, further comprising, for each scheduling information field for which an AI indicator field exists:

when the AI indicator field of the schedule information field indicates an AI mode, a transmission value of the schedule information field is used as an input to an AI inference engine for determining a meaning of the schedule information field;

when the AI indicator field of the scheduling information field indicates a non-AI mode, a transmission value of the scheduling information field is mapped to a meaning of the scheduling information field.

31. The method of claim 28, wherein for at least one of the at least one AI indicator field, the respective at least one scheduling information field comprises at least two scheduling information fields, and wherein the AI indicator field indicates one of:

a non-AI mode is applied to the at least two scheduling information fields;

The joint AI mode is commonly applied to the at least two schedule fields.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the at least two scheduling information fields comprise one of a plurality of bit fields having a relationship with time Resource Allocation (RA) and frequency domain RA, and wherein the AI indicator is as follows:

33. the method according to any one of claims 21 to 32, wherein,

and when the dynamic indication indicates that the at least one scheduling information field exists, indicating the at least one scheduling information with the second-level DCI.

34. The method according to any one of claims 21 to 33, wherein the scheduling information comprises:

one or more bits indicating the number of carriers being scheduled;

scheduling information for each transmission being scheduled.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein indicating how many of the one or more bits each are being scheduled for transmission on the carrier comprises:

36. The method of any one of claims 21 to 35, further comprising:

the network device sends an indicator indicating sense enabled or sense disabled.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the network device transmits the indicator via Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, DCI, or a medium access control-control entity (MAC-CE).

38. The method of claim 36, further comprising:

the network device receives a Channel State Information (CSI) report, wherein the content of the CSI report or the number of bits of at least one type of uplink control information included in the CSI report depends on whether sensing is enabled.

39. The method of claim 38, wherein a number of bits of at least one type of uplink control information indicates one or more reference signals, the one or more reference signals comprising a CSI-RS (channel state information-reference symbol) resource indicator (CRI), a Synchronization Signal Block Resource Indicator (SSBRI), a Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP), or a differential RSRP, and wherein the one or more reference signals are related to a bit width without sensing and a bit width with sensing as follows:

40. An apparatus, comprising:

at least one processor; and

a memory storing processor-executable instructions that when executed cause the processor to:

receiving a first-level DCI scrambled by a Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), wherein the first-level DCI explicitly indicates scheduling information of a second-level DCI;

receiving the second-level DCI in a first Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), wherein the first PDSCH is a physical channel without data transmission;

41. The apparatus of claim 40, wherein the apparatus obtains the at least one DCI format according to one of:

42. The apparatus of any one of claims 40 and 41, wherein the at least one second-level DCI format comprises a predefined relationship between at least one second-level DCI format indicator and at least one scheduling information format, and the at least one scheduling information format comprises one of:

a format for scheduling one PUSCH in one carrier;

a format for scheduling one PDSCH in one carrier;

a format for scheduling side uplinks in a carrier or carriers;

a format for including scheduling information and UE data;

a format for indicating a slot format;

a format for preemption indication;

formats for power control of PUSCH or PUCCH; and

format for power control of SRS.

43. The apparatus of any one of claims 41 and 42, wherein the particular group common RNTI comprises one of: slot Format Indication (SFI) -RNTI, INT-RNTI, transmit Power Control (TPC) -PUSCH-RNTI, TPC-Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) -RNTI, TPC-Sounding Reference Symbol (SRS) -RNTI.

44. The apparatus of any one of claims 40 to 43,

45. The apparatus of any one of claims 40 to 44, wherein,

46. The apparatus of any one of claims 40 to 45,

47. The apparatus of any one of claims 40 to 46,

48. The apparatus of claim 47, wherein the at least one scheduling information is at least one of:

49. The apparatus of claim 47 or claim 48, further comprising, for each scheduling information field for which an AI indicator field exists:

50. The apparatus of claim 47, wherein for at least one of the at least one AI indicator field, the respective at least one scheduling information field comprises at least two scheduling information fields, and wherein the AI indicator field indicates one of:

a non-AI mode is applied to the at least two scheduling information fields;

The joint AI mode is commonly applied to the at least two schedule fields.

51. The apparatus of claim 50, wherein the at least two scheduling information fields comprise one of a plurality of bit fields having a relationship with time Resource Allocation (RA) and frequency domain RA, and the AI indicator is as follows:

52. the apparatus of any one of claims 40 to 51,

the memory also stores processor-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to:

53. The apparatus of claim 52, the memory further storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to:

the value of the scheduling information field from the previous DCI is used.

54. The apparatus of any one of claims 40 to 53, wherein the scheduling information comprises:

one or more bits indicating the number of carriers being scheduled;

scheduling information for each transmission being scheduled.

55. The apparatus of claim 54, wherein indicating how many of the one or more bits each are being scheduled for transmission on the carrier comprises:

56. The apparatus of any one of claims 40 to 55, the memory further storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to:

An indicator is received indicating a sense enable or a sense disable.

57. The apparatus of claim 56, wherein the apparatus receives the indicator through Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, DCI, or a medium access control-control entity (MAC-CE).

58. The apparatus of claim 56, the memory further storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to:

a Channel State Information (CSI) report is transmitted, wherein a content of the CSI report or a number of bits of at least one type of uplink control information included in the CSI report depends on whether sensing is enabled.

59. The apparatus of claim 58, wherein a number of bits of at least one type of uplink control information indicates one or more reference signals, the one or more reference signals comprising a CSI-RS (channel state information-reference symbol) resource indicator (CRI), a Synchronization Signal Block Resource Indicator (SSBRI), a Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP), or a differential RSRP, and the one or more reference signals are related to a bit width without sensing and a bit width with sensing as follows:

60. A network device, comprising:

at least one processor; and

transmitting a first-level DCI scrambled by a Radio Network Temporary Identifier (RNTI) in a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), wherein the first-level DCI explicitly indicates scheduling information of a second-level DCI;

transmitting the second-level DCI in a first Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH), wherein the first PDSCH is a physical channel with no data transmission;

61. The network device of claim 60, wherein the network device indicates the at least one DCI format based on one of:

62. The network device of any one of claims 60 and 61, wherein the at least one second-level DCI format comprises a predefined relationship between at least one second-level DCI format indicator and at least one scheduling information format, and the at least one scheduling information format comprises one of:

a format for scheduling one PUSCH in one carrier;

a format for scheduling one PDSCH in one carrier;

a format for scheduling side uplinks in a carrier or carriers;

a format for including scheduling information and UE data;

a format for indicating a slot format;

a format for preemption indication;

formats for power control of PUSCH or PUCCH; and

format for power control of SRS.

63. The network device of any one of claims 61 and 62, wherein the particular group common RNTI comprises one of: slot Format Indication (SFI) -RNTI, INT-RNTI, transmit Power Control (TPC) -PUSCH-RNTI, TPC-Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) -RNTI, TPC-Sounding Reference Symbol (SRS) -RNTI.

64. The network device of any one of claims 60 to 63,

65. The network device of any one of claims 60 to 64,

66. The network device of any one of claims 60 to 65,

67. The network device of any one of claims 60 to 66,

68. The network device of claim 67, wherein the at least one scheduling information is at least one of:

69. The network device of claim 67 or claim 68, further comprising, for each scheduling information field in which an AI indicator field exists:

70. The network device of claim 67, wherein for at least one of the at least one AI indicator field, the respective at least one scheduling information field comprises at least two scheduling information fields, and wherein the AI indicator field indicates one of:

a non-AI mode is applied to the at least two scheduling information fields;

The joint AI mode is commonly applied to the at least two schedule fields.

71. The network device of claim 70, wherein the at least two scheduling information fields comprise one of a plurality of bit fields having a relationship with time Resource Allocation (RA) and frequency domain RA, and the AI indicator is as follows:

72. the network device of any one of claims 60 to 71,

73. The network device of any one of claims 60 to 72, wherein the scheduling information comprises:

one or more bits indicating the number of carriers being scheduled;

Scheduling information for each transmission being scheduled.

74. The network device of claim 73, wherein the one or more bits indicating how many transmissions are being scheduled each on the carrier comprise:

75. The network device of any one of claims 60 to 74, the memory further storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to:

an indicator indicating sense enable or sense disable is sent.

76. The network device of claim 75, wherein the network device transmits the indicator through Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling, DCI, or a medium access control-control entity (MAC-CE).

77. The network device of claim 75, the memory further storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to:

a Channel State Information (CSI) report is received, wherein a content of the CSI report or a number of bits of at least one type of uplink control information included in the CSI report depends on whether sensing is enabled.

78. The network device of claim 77, wherein a number of bits of at least one type of uplink control information indicates one or more reference signals, the one or more reference signals comprising a CSI-RS (channel state information-reference symbol) resource indicator (CRI), a Synchronization Signal Block Resource Indicator (SSBRI), a Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP), or a differential RSRP, and wherein the one or more reference signals are related to a bit width without sensing and a bit width with sensing as follows: